Absolutely! How vindictive to think otherwise. It's bullshit, but I can understand the "we're going to take your money because we can improve society with it" argument. But I can't understand the "you have too much, so let's take it and burn it" mentality
The point is that there are other good ways to spend the additional tax revenue like education, sience, infrastracture that doesn't directly benefit the poor but everyone. It's just unfair that Warren buffet is paying a lower percentage of his income than his secretary.
Except that he's not - Buffet's corporation is taxed, and then it gives money to him in the form of dividends and then he's taxed. He's paying taxes twice, once at the corporate rate and again at the personal rate
It starts with us helping each other locally and creating tighter communities of people around us. We are being divided by this very .1% by envy and our own greed.
1. The political compass is oversimplified and not taken seriously by political scientists
2. This has nothing to do with his argument. In the US, surveillance is largely the product of moral panics, primarily 1. The red scare 2. The race scare 3. The drug scare, which itself is really just a synthesis of 1 and 2; the drug war was essentially invented to attack black and Latino communities as well as anti government "subversives." Maybe that's not true in EVERY state that has used mass surveillance, but it is true in the specific case of the US.
I believed the negative hype about Trump till I actually listened to what he had to say in context. I don't agree with the guy on a lot, but the emotional reactions instead logical debate really need to stop
>Trump phenomenon fueled on xenophobia, racism, and authoritarianism, which is scary for minorities, is an example of a gov that could go crazy.
Sentences like this are not arguments they are emotional regurgitations of fear created by endless news cycles of ad hominem attacks and half truths.
Trumphobia is the irrational fear of Donald Trump created by media attacks on a candidate they can not control.
I'm not defending trump, I just don't see a place for emotional "-ist" words based on very selective framing of someones speech.
we need to talk about illegal immigration and criminal activity.
We need to talk about Black on Black violence not just police violence.
Why should he know David Duke is? and he disavowed 15 times.
I love the push back, that is what america is about having debates about important issues, not shouting down people who have different opinions.
"David Duke, former grand wizard of the KKK... would you disavow his support or that of his organization?"
"I don't know who David Duke is, and as for any organization, well, I'd have to do further research before disavowing their support"
The next day "Oh, of course I would. It was a bad earpiece they gave me, I told them it wasn't working well."
Well enough that he heard the question just fine and was able to put together a coherent (if bad) answer. Nope, blame your earpiece. Some disavowal that was.
Ok.. you might not trust him saying he had a bad earpiece but he did disavow many times. I'm still not seeing the most evil man on the planet as many try to associate him with. Every argument is based on 90% emotion and a tiny bit of negatively framed fact.
>Donald Trump knows perfectly well who David Duke is
fair enough, good debate on if trump knew him, but since that first interview where he claimed to have a bad ear piece he had disavowed him many times since. I know it gets a lot of air time because the media gets to say "Trump" and "kkk" in the same sentence but this is just an association fallacy and not even an evidence for anyones argument.
Because they are illegals the stats are difficult to prove or disprove.
-An estimated 25,000 of these undocumented immigrants serving sentences for homicide
-A cumulative total of 2.89 million offenses committed by these undocumented immigrants between 2003 and 2009 (although half a million of these were for immigration-related offenses)
-Among those offenses: An estimated 42,000 robberies, 70,000 sex crimes, 81,000 auto thefts, 95,000 weapons offenses, and 213,000 assaults
Nationwide, illegals are Five time Less likely to be in prison than native born US citizens. Also, immigration violations, not violent acts account for most immigrants in federal prison.
Now that is a good argument. I don't give a shit who win the illusion of choice professional wrestling match we call US presidential elections. I would like to see Trumps ideas discussed logically instead of putting blinders on to real problems that are hard to deal with.
> > Trump phenomenon fueled on xenophobia, racism, and authoritarianism, which is scary for minorities, is an example of a gov that could go crazy.
> Sentences like this are not arguments they are emotional regurgitations of fear created by endless news cycles of ad hominem attacks and half truths.
or maybe they're simple observations of the guy himself talking uninterrupted in his election rallies. i saw some on tv, it was embarrassing.
I agree he is a sales man and it can be off putting to a lot of people. On the other hand comparing him to the qualities of Hitler is a extreme misrepresentation and it is just godwin's law.
you're the first to pull the hitler card in this thread.
though you have a point, his campain does resemble Hitler's. sure, it's jews in one and brown people in the other... other than that? the greatest nation on earth under siege! let's make this country great again! they will pay for what they've done to us!
>xenophobia, racism, and authoritarianism, which is scary for minorities, is an example of a gov that could go crazy
These are the qualities of hitler, I pull it to illustrate how ridiculous and lazy your arguments are.
You get offended by someone saying people coming over the boarder illegally are criminals, yet it is ok compare Trump to someone that called for the killings of tens of millions of people most not jews or brown, but white[1]. I don't see the media yelling for apologies on that one...
Are you suggesting that people can't use alternative services just by typing a address into their browser? Or are you saying that if you dislike your goverment polices like unjust wars or surveillance state you don't have to pay taxes for them?
"children" uses ad hominem attacks. Force is great when the force is directed against dissenting views, but not so cool when your views are in the minority.
I know the concept very well. Of course their are advantages to using a service that everyone else is using, but it comes down to what you value more your privacy or the inconvenience of a smaller user group/paying a fee. I think the majority of people don't care about their privacy and would rather make that trade off right now. My core argument is that you still have a choice with free markets but with goverment if your views aren't the majority you are at the whims of group think.
> I think the majority of people don't care about their privacy and would rather make that trade off right now.
That depends on what you mean by that. I think most people care very much about the long-term effects that lack of privacy has on societies. They just are uninformed and therefore don't see those future costs, which is why they make a flawed tradeoff against their own interests.
> My core argument is that you still have a choice with free markets but with goverment if your views aren't the majority you are at the whims of group think.
So, if everyone is on facebook, what choice do you have in reaching an audience? If google started manipulating the opinions of the majority of society against your interests, what choice would you have? ...
>They just are uninformed and therefore don't see those future costs
Who is educating these people? organization who have an interest in keeping the masses ignorant to the effects of privacy.
>which is why they make a flawed tradeoff against their own interests.
this is a common argument it hear, do you not think it is elitist to think that you know better then the common people? Hell, maybe you do, but I bet 10,000 other people also think they know better too. I am going to trust 100 billion micro decisions everyday rather then some academic in an ivory tower who thinks they know the will of the people.
>if everyone is on facebook, what choice do you have in reaching an audience?
Come on, There are many more channels to reach your audience, you are on one right now. Hacker new knows nothing about me other then my username and password.
>If google started manipulating the opinions of the majority of society against your interests, what choice would you have?
duckduckgo, bing, reddit, facebook, TV, or Family people get create their opinions based on a huge number of inputs. The problem is that people want to be told they are right so they only consume things that reinforce their opinion (confirmation bias) but that is a whole other road.
> this is a common argument it hear, do you not think it is elitist to think that you know better then the common people? Hell, maybe you do, but I bet 10,000 other people also think they know better too. I am going to trust 100 billion micro decisions everyday rather then some academic in an ivory tower who thinks they know the will of the people.
What is your point? That people don't ever act against their own interest because of lack of information or understanding?
> Come on, There are many more channels to reach your audience, you are on one right now.
That wasn't the question. The question referred to a hypothetical situation. Stating that the hypothetical situation doesn't match reality doesn't answer the question.
> Hacker new knows nothing about me other then my username and password.
And your IP address and which comment threads you are interested in and which opinions you express and which comments you vote on in which way ... but I guess that's besides the point anyway.
> duckduckgo, bing, reddit, facebook, TV, or Family people get create their opinions based on a huge number of inputs. The problem is that people want to be told they are right so they only consume things that reinforce their opinion (confirmation bias) but that is a whole other road.
How is that a choice you have regarding other people being manipulated against your interests? I don't understand.
You don't know what they value most, only they do.
>That wasn't the question.
True, to much hypotheticals
>And your IP address and which comment threads you are interested in and which opinions you express and which comments you vote on in which way ... but I guess that's besides the point anyway.
Your right about that, but if I cover my tracks I give a lot less data then say a Facebook.
>How is that a choice you have regarding other people being manipulated against your interests?
You don't and you never will. People have been manipulating others since the the dawn of humanity. My point is that if people have choice they can take in many inputs and decide the best way to make decisions for themselves instead of being forced to use a service.
> You don't know what they value most, only they do.
But you very well can find out that people commonly proclaim inconsistent values, and that they often regret decisions they made earlier, and that that often coincides with having had inconsistent values.
It's just an empirical fact that if you look at how happy people (claim they) are, for example, people living in police states tend to be less happy than people living in free(ish) societies, while at the same time you still find many people who are very pro law-and-order. Now, I am not telling them whether they should prefer a police state or a free society, I just can empirically observe that people show support for politics that empirically leads to a society that the same people also empirically dislike.
I wish I had a time machine to change the decisions that I have made, but in that specific time and place with the information that I had at hand, I think I have made the right decisions. I think post people do. Cliché "Hindsight is 20/20"
this fact is what makes the experiment perfect. If people all move from one place because of poor policy it will give that state the incentive to adjust their policy. People should have the freedom to chose the goverment that is most inline with their values. Forcing someone to stay somewhere and pay taxes to a say unjust war or something they are morally opposed to seem to be a terrible existence.
The problem is that there may be policies which work well if the population participates in them consistently, but which fall apart if everybody gets to pick and choose. The whole point of government is to do these things.
But if most the people agree that the policies are good and best combination of all the other states wouldn't they pay those taxes voluntarily instead of having to be coursed into paying? That is democracy right? otherwise it seems kinda selective as to whose votes mater the most.
That works if and only if the best individual choice is also the best group choice. This isn't always true, see the Prisoners' Dilemma.
For example, perhaps society benefits when you tax the wealthy to help the poor. But given the choice, the wealthy will move to where their taxes are lower, so that plan works poorly if you let individual states pick and choose.
Or perhaps society benefits when you don't tax the wealthy to help the poor, and make the poor pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But the poor will move to a state with more aid, again defeating the plan.
Obviously there are differences between the states right now, so this isn't a total obstacle. But it really only works to the extent that there is a lack of mobility between the states (people tend to want to stay where they are), or on issues where it doesn't matter.
Wealth inequality is the perfect example. It is in the best interests of society to keep inequality under control - extreme inequality, like we have today, has negative social and economic implications. But if you are on top, with all the money in the world, why would you ever voluntarily give your money away?
Like the other response said, its prisoners dilemma. It is in the best interests of the rich to pay for honestly a majority stake in the society because they are the ones prospering the most from it. But if any one person of the ownership class can avoid paying, they have an incredible competitive advantage over their peers they will obviously exploit.
Independently, it is never in your best interests to give your money away in taxes. It is always in your best interests to have everyone else pay them but you.
This is why you cannot test any number of policies - basic income, progressive taxation, universal healthcare, amongst many more - because if you are not getting more out of these policies than you put in you have the instant ability to flee from paying for them.
Anti-smoking regulation has been extremely successful in places like Australia. Very few young adults smoke there - Especially when compared to Europe.
Regulation is extremely effective if done correctly and full-heartedly. The problem isn't regulation - It's that the government doesn't actually want to fix certain issues and so it implements half-ass "regulation" just to satisfy the public on a superficial level - This is certainly the case with the gambling industry which the government actually depends on for tax dollars and funding political campaigns.
That's the point I'm trying to make; the government should start caring about its people and implement serious regulation to protect them.
