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Being part of society, any society, means deep concessions on the part of an individual. For some reason (in the US) only money is discussed, but society is forcing us to change many of our ways of life in order to be part of it.
Just 2 points to think about:
1) The US is demanding less from its citizens then most other countries on the planet.
2) A much greater sacrifice is when your country demands to risk your life for it. When US declared war in Iraq, we were all asked to pay huge amounts of $. What about those folks who fiercely oppose the war? Why do they have to give away their hard earned money? During the Vietnam war, the draft forced millions into uniforms. Some of them disagreed with the war, yet they were forced to fight in jungles and swamps thousands of miles from home. Many didn't come back. Others remained maimed for life.
What about these concessions? Aren't they greater then a few $?
I sure don't remember Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld asking any citizens to "to pay huge amounts of $"!
With "rights" come "responsibilites". . . . You are welcome to purchase a "piece of land somewhere", and live without "society" or "services". . . you will still have to pay property tax, I suspect. . . but then again, you are welcome to live "on the street", and avoid even that, and you will have a much better chance to getting "charity" in the form of free food, etc. However, if you want to live in an organized society, you must, in one way or another, pay the price for that priveledge. . . that price is called "taxes", and those "taxes", give to you as well as take from you. You get road maintenance, police and fire service, local, regional and national government, parks and other community amenities, education for the children in your community, and I'm sure a whole host of other things that I cannot enumerate right now. So. . . get over it. . . . society costs, and costs are taxes!
93% of the American people wanted us to start a multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq. If you were one of them, that's what the government took the money out of your pocket for.
Now they are doing the same to reward the special interest and calloing it stimulus. The only thing its stimulated is the specail interests pocketbooks. This administration is like a drunk with a credit card and china is the credit card company.Funny that they cryed about outsourcing jobs ;now they are outsoucrcing governamnt revenues on our credit card.The individaul in chna thqat saved to fund this borrowing will be doing very well in future years thanks to obama.
I sure don't remember Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld asking any citizens to "to pay huge amounts of $"!
The cost of this war is close to $1 trillion. Who is going to finance it?
So far we have 4300 casualties. And what about people who will spend the rest of their lives in wheelchairs? That's the kind of price our country asked them to pay. The ultimate price (and it was not negotiable). Now some complain that with Obama, they may have to spend their hard earned money on things they don't agree with...Yes, so what's new? The only new thing is that you don't agree with the current policies while you agreed with the previous ones. But you never stopped to think about these folks who once disagreed with Vietnam, Korea or Iraq and nobody asked their opinion. They were simply unpatriotic, but their tax money was good. Very good.
I sure don't remember Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld asking any citizens to "to pay huge amounts of $"!
Perhaps because they didn't "ask". . . ? The bill is coming due now, and you are surprised because you thought the war was "free"? You believed Iraqui oil would pay for it? Why?
Perhaps because they didn't "ask". . . ? The bill is coming due now, and you are surprised because you thought the war was "free"? You believed Iraqui oil would pay for it? Why?
Bush promised, over and over again, that when our vandals were finished destroying Iraq's functioning and efficient infrastructure, Iraq's oil reserves would then be "free" to pay for rebuilding Iraq. Which was a completely unconscionable position for the US to take. We broke it , we buy it. The American people are fully responsible for paying every cent for the rebuilding of every single thing that got damaged in Iraq as a result of our unrestrained joy-ride through their schools and hospitals and water purification plants and electrical genertaing stations. Every broken weindow, every smashed down front door, every hummer-dinged car, our responsibility to pay in hard US cash to fix. And our individual responsibilities to work overtime to earn the money that we are obliged to pay for what we broke.
As citizens of a democratic state, we all equally share that responsibility. The American people cannot blame that on anybody else, because we voted, twice, for the vandals who did it, and that makes it the responsibility of all of us collectively and equally.
So far the trillion dollar price tag being bandied about only includes the out-of-pocket costs of all the war profiteers for whose benefit we staged the vandalizing exravaganza. We will never know how much it will cost to rebuild Iraq, because we will simply turn around and walk away and refuse to pay for it, exactly as we did in Panama. And exactly as we will continue to do in country after country in the future.
The American people are at a moral crossroads. We can do the right thing. Or we can just continue to keep on doing the wrong thing, and ultimately reap what we sow. Therein lies our moral dilemma.
Bush promised, over and over again, that when our vandals were finished destroying Iraq's functioning and efficient infrastructure, Iraq's oil reserves would then be "free" to pay for rebuilding Iraq. Which was a completely unconscionable position for the US to take. We broke it , we buy it. The American people are fully responsible for paying every cent for the rebuilding of every single thing that got damaged in Iraq as a result of our unrestrained joy-ride through their schools and hospitals and water purification plants and electrical genertaing stations. Every broken weindow, every smashed down front door, every hummer-dinged car, our responsibility to pay in hard US cash to fix. And our individual responsibilities to work overtime to earn the money that we are obliged to pay for what we broke.
As citizens of a democratic state, we all equally share that responsibility. The American people cannot blame that on anybody else, because we voted, twice, for the vandals who did it, and that makes it the responsibility of all of us collectively and equally.
So far the trillion dollar price tag being bandied about only includes the out-of-pocket costs of all the war profiteers for whose benefit we staged the vandalizing exravaganza. We will never know how much it will cost to rebuild Iraq, because we will simply turn around and walk away and refuse to pay for it, exactly as we did in Panama. And exactly as we will continue to do in country after country in the future.
The American people are at a moral crossroads. We can do the right thing. Or we can just continue to keep on doing the wrong thing, and ultimately reap what we sow. Therein lies our moral dilemma.
I could not AGREE with you more! My post was intended to point out that we (well not me personally, either time) elected into office those whose policies were immoral! (I do still think that the '00 election was "stolen"), but, nevertheless. . . . . . . )
93% of the American people wanted us to start a multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq. If you were one of them, that's what the government took the money out of your pocket for.
Please stop turning every thread with a slight political slant into a rant against the war in Iraq. This has nothing to do with the topic brought up by the OP.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
OK, I can work with that. It shouldn't have been titled "dilemma", then, because there is no dilemma.
Property is the ONLY thing in this country that ought to be taxed. Because it is the only form of wealth that was scooped up free by whoever got there first. All other forms of wealth were earned, and the owners of that wealth have a more rightful claim to possession of it.
Originally, all the people in this country collectively owned all the property. Why should just a few have, with no liability or responsibility of any kind, possession of what used to quite properly belong to all of us?
If you own property, and you can't or won't pay the tax on it, sell it to somebody who can and will. Not a moral dilemma at all.
You could use this exact same arguement to say there should not be any private ownership of anything. You could claim cars are made from materials that at some point came from nature, so everyone should have ownership of all automobiles. This is such an inane thought...
If we are going to reduce taxes in America to only one tax it should be sales tax, not property tax. Sales tax is the great equalizer. It is the only tax in which people pay their 'dues' for living in this country in a good proportion. It is ridiculous to claim that non-property owners could live for free, without financial responsiblity for their citizenship.
Property tax as we know it is a penalty for doing well. It should be restructured into a "user fee" type thing based on the number of people in a household & nothing else. 5 people in an apartment cost a town as much as 5 people in a house.
2 people in a small house cost a municipality no less than 2 people in a 5000 sq ft home.
The idea that its justifiable to charge more municipal property tax based on property value is absurd. Its anything but fair & equitable. My taxes are quickly aproaching $10,000 a year, yet a family of 4 in an apartment or in municipal housing pay nothing. Their kids get to go to school, their toilets lead to the city sewer, their streets get paved & their trash picked up. As time goes by there are fewer tax payers paying the freight & more & more leaches that take but give nothing back.
I guess it helps the Obamas & other socialists but it does nothing but ruin those who actually contribute.
Please stop turning every thread with a slight political slant into a rant against the war in Iraq. This has nothing to do with the topic brought up by the OP.
.
You might wish to go back and read the OP again. It looked to me like it was about extracting money from the citizenry to pay for the collective costs of government and social policy. And my example was not only direct to the point, but the most dramatic event in our nation's history that was to that point. And, my post was a direct response to Visvaldis and Cap 1717---blame them for going off topic. And paying for our vancalism in Iraq was the first point that has come up in this thread that related to any "moral dilemma", which the OP chose as a title for the thread.
I'll make a deal with you. You stop electing presidents and congressmen who tax us trillions to take us to war, and you stop supporting the war when they take us there (I bet you were among the 93%), and you stop waving flags in support of the uniformed vandals we send to kill and pillage, and I'll stop ranting against the wars.
And, yes, automobiles are property too, and in some states (like Kansas) they are taxed as such.
Furthermore, I agree with you that sales tax is fairer than income tax. Tax people on what they consume, not what they produce.
Last edited by jtur88; 07-07-2009 at 08:29 AM..
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