June 22, 2011
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I want to force you to do stuff
It’s true. The libertarian argues that nobody should ever be forced to do anything. Period. Fact. Except maybe not have an abortion or not get married to people of the same sex. But to fair not ALL libertarians want that. The true die hards say no. Nothing. Everything should be a personal choice.
I on the other hand want to force you to do things. How terrible of me! Let me explain to you how horrible and EVIL I am.
First and foremost. I want to force you to pay taxes. It’s true. I do. I think that when you are poor you should pay no taxes, but when you are making a decent amount of money you should pay some amount of that to the government. And the more money you make the greater percentage of it I think should go to the government. That’s right. The better you do the MORE I want to TAKE from you. I also want to take a little more from you if you consume more non-essentials than average and I want to take a little bit more from those who consume thing that create long term secondary harm to society like cigarettes. And I want to take more from those who engage in risky activities that could potentially cause great harm.
But then here’s what I want to do with that money that I am FORCING you to pay.
* I want to build great schools so that your kids can get a great education for free in small classes with great teachers
* I want to build awesome roads and highways so you can travel safely and easily and repair them when they take harm
* I want to create a good and fair police force so that people can be protected from the more dangerous elements of society.
* I want to be create fire departments and pay for top notch equipment so that our firefighters can respond quickly and effectively to save lives whenever fires break out anywhere in the country.
* I want to build and maintain sewage systems so that you can have a clean safe environment in which to live
* I want to deliver clean fresh water to every home and cheap reasonably priced electricity so that people can have cooling in the summer and heat in the winter and lights to run at night.
* I want to be able to deliver a letter you to anywhere or anyone in the country for a tiny fee.
* I want to have a system where by the time you reach an age such that you can no longer work or if you have a disability or any impairment making it impossible for you to work you can have all your basic needs taken care of so you don’t starve and can live your remaining years in modest comfort.
* I also want to create another system that ensures that if you have a spate of terrible bad luck for whatever reason such as an unexpected illness or a natural disaster or an unexpected robbery or losing a job through no fault of your own, or WHATEVER you can get a modest amount of aid from the State so that you and your children can survive and retain basic food and shelter until you can get back on your feet again.
* I want to create emergency response systems that can react in the case of severe disasters like hurricanes, flooding, and forest fires
* I want to also create a system through which the people can in rare circumstances when it is needed raise an army to defend the nation from dangerous threats abroad
* I also want to use that money to setup vaccines for children to fend off the worst diseases and eradicate some of the most harmful illnesses effecting humanity
* I want to also fund research into other things that can better humanity and make all of our lives easier and happier.
* I want to create fair and effective courts staffed with skilled well trained judges and effective lawyers that will adjudicate disputes and preserve a Just legal code to protect people from being cheated, manipulated, or abused.
* I want to also be able to pay to create polling places and run periodic elections so you and I can both vote for men and women who will decide on our behalf and only in accordance with our will what if any other uses to which the money taken from you will be put for the betterment of all
Yes. I want to do all of THAT with YOUR money. And I don’t want to have to ask your permission for it first. I don’t want to have to get your consent before every tax collection. I want to take a small portion of your money to do these things and if you don’t want to pay then I want to charge you a fine for not paying. And if you continue to not pay, unless you’ve built up a huge movement and changed the laws somehow, I want to be able to punish you as if you were a criminal for not paying and not contributing and being a selfish prick who thinks its okay for you to take all the benefits of living in this State and give nothing back in return.
Not only that… but I have the TENACITY to want to force you to do other things too. Oh no. It’s not just pay taxes when you can afford to. I have these other ONEROUS and TERRIBLE requirements of you:
I want to force you to fill out a piddling survey called a census once every ten years giving your government a small amount of information to use to provide better services to you.
I also want to force you to apply for a license to do dangerous tasks like operate a motor vehicle that prove that you know what you’re doing and have the basic physical capacity to do the task.
I also want to force you to, if you run a business abide by certain regulations that ensure that your business does not contribute negatively to the public health. E.g. you can’t sell milk with rat poison in it. And you can’t dump toxic sludge into our rivers and streams. I also want to force you not to discriminate between people you hire based on stupid irrelevant shit like skin color or gender or sexual orientation or age.
I ALSO want to force you to abide by a certain set of basic laws that ensure that people can retain property and preserve people’s safety. That is, you can’t rape someone even if the privacy of your own home and you can’t walk into someone else’s home and take their stuff and you can’t slaughter animals for fun or execute trespassers on your property. I want to FORCE you not to do those things. I DEMAND that you not do things like that.
Do you see? It’s true. I want to force all kinds of things upon you that might not be your own natural choice. And I want you to be stuck with them until you can convince a majority of your fellow citizens to act in concert to change the laws to do things differently. (and for certain fundamental things described in a document called the constitution it should require a SUPER majority of your fellow citizens be convinced before you can change them) And if you try to do that I intend wholeheartedly to fight your attempts to change said laws with every ounce of breathe and every bit of energy in my body.
But that’s also basically ALL I want to force you to do. That’s it. There might be a few tiny things I’ve forgotten but by and large I have no greater requirements upon you. You are free to have your own religion. You are free to have your own cult even. You are free to say whatever you want, do whatever you want, run whatever business you want, purchase whatever you want (aside from people), live wherever you want, believe whatever you want, and care about whomever you want. You can have as few or as many children as you want. You can even hold as many parties as you want. You can have sex with whomever you want and you can watch whatever pornography you want and masturbate whenever you’d like. I don’t want to force you to marry anyone or not marry anyone. I don’t want to force you take certain drugs or not take certain drugs. You can be friends with whomever you want and you can even hate whomever you’d like and hopefully love whomever you’d like as well. It’s EVEN ok with me if you do research into global warming or stem cells. Radical, I know.
And I have no intention of EVER wanting to force you to do any of these things. Asides from the things I mentioned above. I’m cool with you doing basically anything else. I have no intention of ever creating a world where you are forced to work at specific tasks or forced to only own a certain amount or forced to only eat certain things. I’ve got no interest in that whatsoever. Anyone who says that I do is a liar and a fool.
And when you add up all these things that I want to force you to do and all the things I want to be able to do with the proceeds of your forced labor do you know what we end up with? A society that looks pretty much a LOT like the one we have RIGHT NOW. IT would look a lot like the society that we’ve been building for hundreds of years and the one that has brought us the wonders of modernity and the great gains in wealth and life expectancy of modern societies around the world.
You know what? I just realized something in writing this piece.
I AM A CONSERVATIVE.
In the traditional sense, I want to keep things basically the way they are. I don’t want to change things. I don’t want to go on some radical experiment of radical individualism or radical corporatism that might end up with who knows what kind of society as a result. Sure there’s still a lot to change and a lot to get better but I think we’re more or less on the right overall trajectory even if we’ve sometimes veered off course a bit here and again. Maybe not fast enough. Maybe not always in the best way. But still generally running on the right principles that would take us to a good and stable outcome.
So yes. I’m a traditional conservative. It’s all you libertarian lunatics that don’t ever want to force anyone to do anything that are the radicals.
That said, I think you radicals have somehow seized a huge amount of control in this country over the last 30 years or so and are starting to take us off into absolute crazy land and undo all these things I’ve described above. So right NOW, I stand in contrast to THAT and thus I’m very much a Liberal. I want to change the system to remove YOU from power before you screw things up any further and things have changed so much we might never ever be able to get back on course…
Comments (10)
I heard about a study that said rat poison in moderate levels is good for strengthening an infant’s immune system.
And anyway, caveat emptor. Typical liberal, making it hard for business to earn an honest profit just because some parents (gay ones, probably) expect big government to do the job of a responsible parent. Lazy. No wonder these latest generations are growing up weak and mewling. Our founders didn’t grow up like that, they drank their raw milk fresh from the cow, and fighting off naturally occurring bacteria like listeria and salmonella made them powerful men who knew they could take on the world. We could depend on that bacteria today except the lamestream media scared people into letting the government push for pasteurization. Now we have to settle for rat poison. And you want to take that away too.
Hands off my money, looter. It’s all about the government maintaining control by making people think they need a new god. We don’t need them for anything. You know it deep down. I sure know it. If the federal thieves didn’t control a monopoly over the military, I’d start my own mercenary group and take care of the war situation before you could say Jack Robinson. I sure don’t need your vaccination programs and fire departments. The human race got along for thousands of years before FDR. Ever think of that? Now everyone’s worried about the human race making itself go extinct. Huh? Thinking yet?
And screw getting a driver license. I’ll rev my pickup anywhere I want, including off the beaten path. Tax-funded roads are only a way to force citizens to drive within a box, where their cops and their traffic light cameras and their construction workers can keep an eye on you. You can keep your highway system. I drive through God’s church to get to wherever I need to go and you have no idea of the beautiful scenery you are missing. That’s what depending on big government does to you. You don’t even know what’s out there. Accidentally running over squirrels every time you drive to Wal-Mart makes you appreciate life.
“I want to change the system to remove YOU from power”
Me and everybody else in patriotic America feels the same way about you, looter. I know where I’m going to start. It’s dinnertime. Enjoy your federally-approved soy cheese and emasculating bell pepper slices served up just the way Michelle Obama wants you to have it. Me, I’ll stick to my rat poison. Guess who will win this one? Guess.
I willingly consent to your plan of action. Though I’d vote for a man or a woman who would also use the money you’re taking from me to ensure that everyone has access to basic healthcare.
*sighs relief* Good thing you’re just talking about civic duty and such. The title in my inbox made me think you might have some kinky plans for me.
@TheTheologiansCafe - Say it. Say what you really mean when you covet the property of a man who did nothing to you. EAT THE RICH. JUST EAT THEM ALL UP WHY DON’T YOU.
Okay. Warren Buffet pays a lower percentage than his secretary. I sure hear a lot about Warren Buffet’s money. People must obsess over the image in their heads of Buffet’s fortune, until they can’t get it out of their minds unless they sculpt a reproduction of Buffet money out of their suppertime mashed potatoes. It’s his money, not yours, and not his secretary’s. She pays more in taxes because pencil pushers like her are born in litters. So are internet commenters like me. Warren Buffet is a producer of the first order, and nobody deserves to confiscate a penny of his earnings for any reasons, including but not limited to whatever looting program you love so much that you should just go ahead and marry. MARRY IT. EAT THE RICH AND MARRY YOUR WELFARE STATE.
When I found my utopia, Men shall be free to earn without punishment and pursue their highest self-interests for their own purposes with no interference from the undeserving. All will enjoy the work of their own hands; the pets will be particularly standoffish cats; house plants will gather their own food from the air and sunshine or wilt like the lazy fools they are. Guidance will come not from government or a false priesthood, but from self-evident truth, and letting a large copy of Atlas Shrugged fall open as I close my eyes and point to a random line within.
When all the working wealthy flee to breathe free air, who will you tax then? Much good may your flat tax do you, and your brainwashed picture of “fairness”, as even Warren Buffet’s secretary follows the worthy ones with renewed gratitude for her place in life and the internet commenters swarm across the world’s remains to conquer the wastes. The situation will be excellent, until my utopia is hacked by 4chan.
…
Okay, I recant. Never mind. *studies the works of Michael Moore and back issues of Adbusters*
EAT THE RICH! EAT THE BASTARDS ALL UP!
@TheTheologiansCafe - In this post I was only describing my opposition to those that believe that all taxes and regulations are amongst the greatest moral wrongs because they represent theft and coercion because liberty and autonomy are the primary and only virtues of significance. Libertarians who believe that start from the immorality of these things and then conclude that since we might need military and maybe police we should maybe have a tiny bit of taxes but only the absolute minimum necessary to achieve totally necessary ends.
I start from the opposite end of the spectrum and assume that there are lots of very good ends that can be achieved through taxes and regulation and that they can have their own intrinsic value that often exceeds the benefit that might be obtained by leaving people “free” not to contribute to those ends.
That said, the specific tax system we use is open to debate and discussion. I don’t have any particularly strong opinions of one over the other provided none of them are trojan horses designed to ultimately lead to the libertarian ideal. I believe it is theoretically possible to achieve these ends with progressive income taxes, flat income taxes, consumption taxes, sin taxes, tariffs, property taxes, or risk-based taxes or some combination of the above. Currently we have a broad mix and I think that that works ok though it obviously has some issues with complexity and loop holes. That said, if we HAD to pick just one to simplify to, I’d probably pick a progressive income tax since when done properly it scales requirements based on income in a manner that I think is very fair and can also provide enough revenue to the government to fuel the programs I think are necessary. However, they do have the weakness of creating a slight disincentive toward work (so does a flat tax) which I don’t think is great. So if I can do a mixture I’d prioritize taxes on things that cause social harm and then make up the difference with a progressive income tax system.
But what I think is most important is not HOW you do it but THAT you do it. I completely reject the idea that taxes are a moral wrong. That was what I wanted to get across here.
@TheTheologiansCafe - Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for taxing the rich as well, corporate and upperclass loopholes of getting around taxes is ridiculous and shouldn’t be allowed. I was just playing the other side a bit so that it can be shown that these rich people also do philanthropic deeds, especially Warren Buffet. Thanks for the insightful research though.
Flat tax has always been the ideal way of getting money, since it would mean an equal proportion of their money is being taken, but at the same time, it makes it seem as though you’re punishing the rich for doing something they’re good at.
@TheTheologiansCafe - @junbelievable08 - Ummm… the relative merits of various tax policies isn’t really what this blog entry is about. I’m discussing political philosophy. You’re welcome to discuss it and I’d be happy to discuss it with you but could you please discuss it elsewhere?
Thanks.
@nephyo - pardon us for taking over your comment wall…..i was thinking the same thing….i’ll erase my comments too…
@TheTheologiansCafe - you don’t have to erase anything. I’m not a fond of deleting things in general. I think it’s fine if you just don’t add any further comments about it. I just don’t want things to get distracted by a tangent in case there are those who want to discuss my post’s content. Specific tax policy debates can quickly come to dominate the comment section of any blog and people have pretty strong opinions. But the debate can sometimes drive other commenters away.
@junbelievable08 - nah. it’s cool. see my above reply. I can understand why there was confusion. My post was deliberately vague as I was trying to be funny. But what I really wanted to get across was the moral value of government action such as taxes and regulation in general. I wasn’t privileging any one approach over any other.