Text 3687, 180 rader
Skriven 2006-07-08 01:05:00 av Robert E Starr JR (4160.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Atheists: America's m
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* * * This message was from Josh Hill to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
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@MSGID: <tilta290omdjt371s44oduebqg2qkbka0u@4ax.com>
@REPLY: <cemfa2pl698vnkdpfkl6hsjrm4qedts632@4ax.com>
On Thu, 06 Jul 2006 12:52:00 GMT, Kurt Ullman <kurtullman@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>In article <kfpoa2pfqadgjiii2sopehbbvpei6ume5o@4ax.com>,
> Josh Hill <usereplyto@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Actually, the Government's right to tax is enshrined in the
>> Constitution.

>   No it isn't. Congress shall the power... Everywhere else there is a 
>right, the word is actually used. Rights are higher on the scale of 
>precedence than mere powers.

Quibble.
 
>> >A right to tax indicates that the 
>> >government takes what it needs and then allows you to keep what it deems 
>> >it doesn't need.
>> 
>> That's the way it's always worked. How else would it work?
>> 
>      So according to you, the IRS takes your pay check, takes what it 
>wants and gives the rest to you?

Last I checked, that was what the IRS did, yes.

You seem to be creating -- well, I'm not sure what you're creating
here, except that it doesn't seem to have any substance to it. The
gummint takes some of your money and it always has, as has every
government in history. The Founding Fathers enshrined that power (if
you will) in the Constitution, and set out some reasonable limits
designed to prevent abuses with which they were familiar -- taking
property without compensation, quartering troops, what have you. None
of them are violated by the estate tax -- if they were, it would be
unconstitutional.

>> >> D. You speak of private property as if it were sacrosanct, but who
>> >> gave Joe the right to that property in the first place? Probably some
>> >> poor Indian who was run off his tribe's land with a musket. And while
>> >> that Indian would have been very firm about his tribe's ownership of
>> >> that land, he would have found your notion that one person or family
>> >> should control it bizarre. Yet we take it for granted that Joe has
>> >> some special right to it because his great-great-great-great
>> >> grandfather ran that Indian off with a musket.
>> >
>> >    See. Another reason we don't commuicate. Private property is not 
>> >only sacrosanct but absolutely necessary and inherent to our entire 
>> >system. 
>> 
>> That private property is inherent to our system doesn't mean that it's
>> inherent to every political system. And even within our system,
>> private property is not quite as inviolable as you make it out to be.
>> The state, for example, has the right of eminent domain, albeit it
>> must pay fair compensation. The state can levy taxes, even if those
>> taxes have the effect of reducing one's property. The state can
>> regulate what one does with one's property for the public good.
>> Within that Constitutional framework, there's a great deal of give, a
>> great deal of practicality. And there's a tacit understanding of the
>> moral obligations of the group to the individual and the individual to
>> the group.
>
>       We were talking about our system, why bring others in. 
>Actually most of the stuff that you outline are indications of the 
>importance of personal property. They can't just come in and take it 
>without compensation and without at least pretending they have a good 
>reason, they generally cannot levy taxes that impact on the property 
>values of SPECIFIC lots (to be used as a punishment or to drive someone 
>out).

Sure. But those don't apply in this case, so I don't see how they're
significant. The point is that within our system, insofar as it's
mandated by the Constitution, the government has the right to levy
inheritance taxes. For that matter, it has the right to tax your
property while you live, subject to the safeguards above, though
sometimes in ways that are manifestly inequitable, e.g., that favor
one class of property holder over another.

>> >> Nah, there's no deep philosophy here. If a fellow amasses property
>> >> through the sweat of his brow, one can at least invoke fairness -- he
>> >> did the work, he should have the reward. But in the case of
>> >> multigenerational inheritance, well, all it comes down to is the
>> >> question of whether and to what degree we are going to let some
>> >> individuals suck blood in perpetuity from the body economic because
>> >> their ancestors happened to be Smiths rather than Joneses.
>> 
>> >        But you are more than happy to let the government suck that very 
>> >same blood FROM the economy.
>> 
>> I think you should address my statement rather than ignoring it and
>> shifting the conversation to another topic
>
>    I did answer it. You suggested that keeping the family's hard earned 
>money was sucking blood from the economy. I suggested that inheritance 
>taxes themselves do the same thing by diverting resources from 
>economically positive things like growing the business, investing in 
>other things, etc. 

The first implication of that is that the money doesn't go to positive
things and the reduction of other levies, and the second implication
is that the most effective means of growing businesses and investing
is leaving capital and power in the hands of and paying vast sums of
money to aristocrats. This is I think a very pre-Smith view.
 
>> That being said, I'm not aware of any evidence that your assertion is
>> true. I believe that government should handle what it can best handle,
>> and that individuals and businesses should handle what they can best
>> handle, and I believe that who handles what should be based on
>> evidence rather than the ideologies and preconceptions of the left or
>> the right.

>        But are you aware of any evidence that it is false?

Rather, evidence that it's overbroad. Social Security, for example, is
more efficient than the so-called free market alternatives: its task
is simple and its overhead is low. (I won't reference the figures here
because we've argued them endlessly.) It just happens to be the kind
of program that government excels at. I could just as easily point to
cases in which free enterprise is more efficient. And in some cases,
which works best may be situational. For example, some countries have
had great success with privately-run airport security, but our own
privately-run system, for whatever reason, sucked eggs, and we
replaced it with a public one.

> In some cases, that leads me to support a role for the
>> government, as for example in the expansion of Medicare, which in
>> light of the fact that as we both agree it's been a long time since
>> medicine was a matter of market forces, appears to be more efficient
>> than private health care plans. 
>
>    We don't know how this works out. I see no reason to think an actual 
>freemarket health care system (where I buy my own insurance, pay for it 
>myself, etc.) would less effecient than government plans. You are 
>putting words into my mouth.

First of all, while I'm sure it would have been an improvement, I
don't believe I was putting words in your mouth: I didn't say that you
thought that Medicare appears to be more efficient than private health
care plans, merely that we both agree that it's been a long time since
medicine was a matter of market forces. The date you gave was I think
WW II and that corresponds with what I've read as well.

That being said, I don't see how an actual free market health care
system can exist in this country at present. The public won't tolerate
people going without basic medical care, and the treatment of serious
illnesses has become in many cases too expensive for people to pick up
on their own. So everyone except the wealthy, who can self-insure,
needs to be covered by some combination of insurance, government, or
charity. That being the case, Medicare seems to be a superior choice. 

And, really, with the evidence all around us that our system has
turned into a dysfunctional feeding trough that's harming our people
and harming our country and compares unfavorably on most though not
all counts to the systems in other industrialized countries, I'm
losing patience for the free-market ideologues, greedy interest
groups, and bought-and-paid for legislators who stand in the way of
meaningful reform. Which is to say that while I'm all in favor of
doing better than Canada, France, Germany, and our own Medicare
program, my primary concern is that we do as well.

-- 
Josh

"I love it when I'm around the country club, and I hear people talking about
the debilitating
effects of a welfare society. At the same time, they leave their kids a
lifetime and beyond
of food stamps. Instead of having a welfare officer, they have a trust officer.
And instead
of food stamps, they have stocks and bonds."

- Warren Buffett
                                                  
--- SBBSecho 2.11-Win32
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