The Income Tax is Slavery

In my opinion, only artificial persons should bear the burden of an income tax.

 

No, silver and gold are not what the market chose, nor what the people chose. They're what you personally want. Do not confuse your personal feelings for the will of the people.

We live in a democracy - if there were some great desire on the part of the people for gold and silver currency, why aren't we seeing it? Why aren't there any countries in the world that use gold and silver for currency anymore? For that matter, their use was never really universal until the modern era, when the western powers exported their system to the world. Fiat currency has been pretty universally adopted simply because it works better. A near static money supply based on metals simply is not adequate to meet the needs of a growing, highly variable economy.

 

The several States are specifically Prohibited from making anything but gold or silver forms of money.

 

Actually, I'm not talking about greed and selfishness at all, and I'm not sure where that comment came from. I'm more talking about the nature of life, the universe and everything. Yes, yes, I know the answer is 42, that's not the point. I understand your argument and your logic is impeccable. However, I am taking issue with your assumptions. My fundamental point is that labor is something you do, not something you are. How exactly is labor "imbedded" in something? All physical systems in the universe evolve according to the conditions they are in. You can interact with a system and change its state, and then the system continues to evolve from its new state. A system's state simply is. It requires no explanation or justification, it simply is what it is. While it is true that there is a connection between you and any system you have interacted with, that connection is in the sense that when you interact with something, it also interacts with you. If you change something you are yourself changed in the process. I suppose you could look at it as having a "right" to the changes in yourself, although that application of the concept seems rather odd to me. But it doesn't give you a "right" to the change in the other system.

And I must remark again that I find a system of morality that would logically dictate that the universe itself is inherently immoral to be rather absurd. I suppose the larger point is that I am of the opinion that the concept of rights has become overused. Rights are legal concepts, and are about the socially accepted rules by which we interact with each other. They are not fundamental, and nothing in the structure of the universe dictates or even implies them.

Nothing in life is certain, ever. If your idea of morality cannot deal with uncertainty, how do you get out of bed in the morning? I feel that to deal meaningfully with life, you must recognize that uncertainty and even embrace it. I can't know the consequences of an action with certainty, no. But I can make a reasonable judgment as to the probabilities of various potential outcomes. And while it can be difficult to judge the positivity of an outcome, I think we all know what it means to do harm. And in my view, if there is no real harm involved, it's not really a question of morality. And once you've made judgements about the probabilities and positivity of various outcomes of a potential course of action, it's a pretty simple calculation to come up with an overall assessment of the positivity of a course of action - multiply each outcome's positivity by its probability and add them all up.

Yes, real life is messy. Yes, real life is unpredictable. Yes real life does not play by the rules we might wish it did. Yes, you're going to have to use subjective judgements that may well turn out to be very wrong. But you'll have to deal with that no matter what approach you take.

My feeling is that thinking that you can take a system of propositions - whether they are about rights or anything else - and then construct a full morality based on them is rather misguided, and makes some basic mistakes about the nature of logic and its proper use. Logic is a powerful thing, but it has its limitations. Logic really only does one thing: it takes a set of propositions and determines if they are self consistent, and if they are what other propositions are required, allowed, and forbidden to maintain that consistency. Logic can not ever determine the truth of something. Truth can only be determined by examining the real world. After all, the universe is under no obligation to be consistent, or to make sense to us.

I see three major flaws in this approach to morality. The first is that if any of your propositions turn out to be wrong, it invalidates everything you've derived so far from them, and you have to start over from scratch with adjusted propositions. And after all, we are all human and all fallible, so you can be pretty certain that all of us will turn out to be wrong about some things, even things like rights.

Secondly, the universe will undoubtedly throw a situation at you at some point that isn't covered by your propositions. Trying to extend the logic to cover something very different from what the original propositions were talking about is hazardous, at best.

Lastly and most importantly, never underestimate the human power of rationalization. If someone wants a certain outcome to be justified by a set of propositions, they will almost certainly be able to find a way to do so, no matter what the original propositions are.

 

Creating forms of wealth can be considered a natural right even if it requires labor.

 

If rights are mere legal concepts, then the state has absolute authority to dictate whatever it wants. If the state, re-legalized slavery that would be acceptable.

Under consequentialism, anything can be justified, so long as meets the individual's arbitrary calculus for what's a positive outcome. I, for example, may decide that the most positive outcome would be for the human race to be driven to extinction and, based on that set of values, go around forcibly killing people. Unless you want to argue that your values are correct and my are wrong, which takes you right back into the land of objective morality that you want to avoid.

 

As our temporal and secular morals and ethics on Earth, our Founding Fathers wisely enumerated that their Commandments, should be the supreme law of the land of the United States. I am glad that form of moral "absolutism" has lasted as long as it has.

 

The only thing fiat currency does well is create bubbles, especially sovereign debt bubbles. No bubble past or present is larger than the current US Treasury bubble. It was only possible because central planners that issue this paper backed by legal tender laws have suppressed interest rates for many years, ensuring that the price of liquidity does not reflect reality all along. Have fun when this bubble pops.

 

Why is suppressing interest rates a bad thing in our mixed-market economy?

What you have described has more to do with fiscal forms of irresponsibility on the part of our elected representatives to federal government, but not state government, simply because the several States are prohibited from creating their own fiat money.

Why is there no demand for gold or silver currency on the part of those states?

 

How do you figure that? You don't need to appeal to some sort of moral code written into the fabric of the universe itself to see that something is wrong. If I may venture a guess, it rather sounds to me like you want to take those principles that are most important to you personally and cast them as being absolutely fundamental because you are afraid that allowing them to be re-examined could result in them being questioned. I would suggest that questioning important principles does not endanger them, but makes them stronger. If a principle is questioned and the questions answered, we can be more confident in that principle being correct. If a principle is questioned and flaws are found, those flaws can be corrected, which makes the principle better.

A legitimate state derives its authority from the consent - implicit or explicit - of the governed. The same morality that applies to individuals also applies to the state, and other groups and organizations as well.

I am not overly concerned about objective vs subjective. It seems to me that there is rather a continuum between the two. After all, in some sense, isn't all human experience subjective?

In any case, I would suggest that a morality based on absolutes is far, far more vulnerable to being twisted to justified horrible things then one focused on consequences. It may seem reasonable to say that there are certain principles which cannot be questioned, but the problem is that many situations will arise in which those principles might be indirectly questioned. By trying to shelter your most important principles, you create corners of darkness where the light of reason never shines. And I think we all know what grows in such places.

From 1855 - 1929, the US economy spent 45% of the time in recession. From 1945 - 2009, the US spent 15% of the time in recession.
http://www.nber.org/cycles.html
This is largely a consequence of abandoning the gold standard. Under the gold standard, the money supply is essentially static, so when the economy grows you have the same amount of dollars chasing more and more goods and services. This causes deflation, which causes recession. The gold standard fundamentally limits growth. What fiat currency does very well is create the climate for sustained, long term economic growth.

 

Um, yes, you do. Otherwise, on what basis can you judge it wrong?

But you haven't questioned my ethical principles. You've simply said that there are no ethical principles.

The state does not have unanimous consent of all the people it governs.

If you want to question the principle question it. The principle is that each human being has absolute, sovereign dominion over his or her own labor. Now question it.

According to who's measures? The state's of course. This says nothing about whether or not an economy is healthy. Also, this statistic interesting writes off the 17-year Great Depression. In fact, there is nothing wrong with slow, gradual deflation based on economic growth, as we see today in the computer industry. In fact, one of the times of greatest economic growth in our country was during the late 19th century, when prices were going down.

 

Which business did that to you?

 

Envy and jealousy are so ugly

 

Half of the bottom actually make money off the tax system, the government sends them a check. The other half of the half get a graduated reimbursment but the fact remains they only pay 2% of income taxes.

Wait a minute YOU said

"Taxes are the price of living in a civilized society. What makes you feel entitled to the benefits of that society while not having to pay for it?"

It is YOU who are complaining about people who feel entitled to the benefits of our society while not having to pay for it.

So let's ask the lower 48% of earners who don't pay for it. What makes them feel entitled to other peoples earnings?

Why would I want to do something stupid like that, when I was young and starting out and made minimum wage I was smart and didn't try to support a family on it,

Read the subject of this thread.

YOU are the one that took the position.


"Taxes are the price of living in a civilized society. What makes you feel entitled to the benefits of that society while not having to pay for it?"

You are complaining about your own position.

I asked for a specific example "What business let you starve for non-compliance and be specific as to who and what you didn't comply with."

 

You forget one small thing. Your representatives in Congress (whom you and others elected) decide how much to tax you.

So you are in effect taxing yourself.

For your own good.

 

I didn't vote a single person currently in Congress or in the White House, so I'm mystified how they can possibly be said to represent me. At best, they represent those members of my district who voted for them, but those individuals are not me.

 

I think you mean banks and corporations own you house, car, television and means of earning. Banks and corporations own you.

 

You're right. Banks have married the Government via the Federal Reserve act.

 

Dunno. Banks and corporations need you to enter into some kind of agreement to make a claim on what you own. The government doesn't.

 

How was it any better before the federal reserve act which was prompted by some sort of reaction to the status quo when it failed to deliver as promised?

 

Promised what?

 

Those goods and services to which we were accustomed.

 

Nobody knows what the price of liquidity should be at any point in time. Low does not automatically equal good.

Legal tender laws will support the dollar until the Treasury Bubble pops. Do you think that the dollar would be the world reserve currency if it had never been backed by gold?

 

Deflation is price discovery. Price discovery is necessary. Central planners don't like price discovery, that is why they create bubbles to fight it.

At this point, due to global central banking, everybody is levered to the survival of the sovereign debt/fiat currency bubble. Desperation has allowed this generation of fiat currencies to last longer than any other generation of fiat currency (which did not last long enough to "create the climate for sustained, long term economic growth").

Now that we see less than a dollar of GDP growth from a dollar of debt, we are in the Keynesian endgame. Maybe it will be Europe first, who just saw their economies shrink in the face of frenzied balance sheet expansion by the ECB.

 

With that sort of record maybe you should consider voting for people you don't want to see hold the office, maybe then you will get people you like?

Seriously though with or without your actual vote the people that win still represent you. If you want to get wrapped up in the minutia of a write your congressman about something, they will consider your thoughts, or at least someone on their staff will.