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You have a big problem with definition of "voluntarily".
In your definition slaves "voluntarily" choose to become slaves. Because they had the "choice", as you would say - either become a slave or die. You call that a "choice".
Do you see the problem with your logic?
Of course you don't, so let me spell it out for you slowly and in detail.
Let's say I don't want to be exploited. What is my "choice"? To not die from hunger, I need some food - do you agree? Now, since I'm not working for anyone, I don't have money to buy the food, so the choices are:
1) gather food like our ancestors did thousands year ago. Ouch, this is not possible - all land belongs to someone, so if I do that I will be charged with trespassing and sent to jail.
2) grow food like ancestors did hundreds year ago. Ouch this also is not possible - remember, all land already belongs to someone?
3) start some "business" to get people's money in exchange. That's what you imply by "choice", right? Let's put aside for a moment a hard cold scientifically proven fact that only ~5% of people have skills to do that and pretend that anyone can do that. To start any business at all I need what? Right - some money, for example, to at least have some clothes to put on - I don't think anyone will accept naked "businessman". Ouch, and where am I going to get that money from? "Voluntarily" be exploited by someone?
You see, if your choice is between "die" and "be exploited", it's not "voluntarily" from any point of view. But of course you don't see that and not going to - do you?
Finally! Your argument isn't about the difference in what people are paying. And it's not about forcing other people to pay for someone else's healthcare. It's about voluntary vs involuntary subscription via tax policy. See how that's an entirely different objection than the runaround you were making?
You don't like paying for your healthcare. I don't like paying for my missiles that get dropped on Black people. Looks like taxes suck. Still gotta pay them.
You are trying to argue with a chinese taliban - indoctrinated to the core.
as our society continues to evolve and as the disparity of lifestyles and financial well-being becomes more pronounced we may revisit our definition of slavery and decide certain facets of it that may work in modern society. Assigning people to work for others may be good for society. A lot of people could use some help around the house. This would be especially helpful to those who suffer from failure to launch.
There was a CitiGroup Memo put out many years ago to a select group of very wealthy clients. It was leaked to the internet and pissed off a lot of people.
It basically spelled out the current world structure.
All countries, the people and resources in the world are simply objects to be EXPLOITED to make the rich richer.
There is no Nationalism, No My Country, No Constitution.
These people belong in Hell and tortured forever.
I would be interested to see the wealthiest canadians list.
"the top 1% of households account for 40% of financial net worth, more than the bottom 95% of households put together. This is data for 2000"
So, this was 20 year ago. I'll bet today, it's worse. Perhaps the top 1% have more than the bottom 97% combined.
Some here ask me why I use the "top 1%" & not some other metric. Stories like this is my answer. Many stats track the top 1%, so its a common yardstick to use when disussing income & wealth disparity.
Like this article, I use the top 1% in terms of wealth, not income.
Imagine 1 American, out of 100 Americans, has more than the bottom 95 American combined.
I'm not for taking anything away from the top 1%, I'm for de-rigging the system they've constructed, which totally distorts what our founders built. The top 1% have replaced free trade, with crony-capitalism.
Yea, the conversation always seems to de-evolve into the complainers being accused of wanting other peoples money when we want them out of our government is the main request. 40 years ago, you had a more balanced mix of people in Washington DC. Today, it is all corporate elite.
You have a big problem with definition of "voluntarily".
In your definition slaves "voluntarily" choose to become slaves. Because they had the "choice", as you would say - either become a slave or die. You call that a "choice".
Do you see the problem with your logic?
Of course you don't, so let me spell it out for you slowly and in detail.
Let's say I don't want to be exploited. What is my "choice"? To not die from hunger, I need some food - do you agree? Now, since I'm not working for anyone, I don't have money to buy the food, so the choices are:
1) gather food like our ancestors did thousands year ago. Ouch, this is not possible - all land belongs to someone, so if I do that I will be charged with trespassing and sent to jail.
2) grow food like ancestors did hundreds year ago. Ouch this also is not possible - remember, all land already belongs to someone?
3) start some "business" to get people's money in exchange. That's what you imply by "choice", right? Let's put aside for a moment a hard cold scientifically proven fact that only ~5% of people have skills to do that and pretend that anyone can do that. To start any business at all I need what? Right - some money, for example, to at least have some clothes to put on - I don't think anyone will accept naked "businessman". Ouch, and where am I going to get that money from? "Voluntarily" be exploited by someone?
You see, if your choice is between "die" and "be exploited", it's not "voluntarily" from any point of view. But of course you don't see that and not going to - do you?
At least you laid out your reasons not like others who keep screaming the 1% is evil.
All of us have been or are in that situation, are we not? If we don’t work, we die. Nobody except our parents is obligated to feed us, and nobody is forcing you to work.
Mind you selling your own labor is a business.
In the old days, if you step into the wrong forest, you would be eaten.
Yea, the conversation always seems to de-evolve into the complainers being accused of wanting other peoples money when we want them out of our government is the main request. 40 years ago, you had a more balanced mix of people in Washington DC. Today, it is all corporate elite.
I don’t see you dish out any of your money to help the situation.
There's a simple solution that many of you keep ignoring: Instead of taxing progressively as is done in the US, tax regressively like the European countries do:
Congress implements policies, regulations, laws, etc., that further enrich the already rich, as that maximizes federal income tax revenue.
Look at which income group is paying a MUCH greater share of the Federal Income Tax (dark blue bar) than their share of the income (light blue bar):CRS (Congressional Research Service) Chart
It's Figure 7 in the report for those who have no idea what they're supposed to be looking at.
I'll let an economist explain it, again...
For those who think Congress (BOTH parties) encourages policies that result in the rich getting richer... Here's an explanation of WHY that is. (Hint: You yourselves are clamoring for exactly that to happen)...
Got that? If the solvency of the state and the ability to fund basic services for the poorest people in society depends on the rich getting even richer, it is tempting for even the most progressive politicians to support widening inequalities.
That's exactly what happens in the US, and that's the inherent fatal flaw in a progressive tax system; it distorts and exacerbates income/wealth inequality by necessity in order to maximize tax revenue. The Europeans (including the Scandinavians) have figured that out, and therefore rely most heavily on regressive taxes such as VAT and MUCH flatter income tax brackets.
THIS is how European countries tax: regressively. Be sure to read the scatter plot chart and understand what it is telling us. There IS a distinct pattern:
There's even a link to the research on which the Washington Post article is based. It includes numerous additional citations.
Why don't we just tax regressively like European countries? That removes the incentive for Congress to act in ways that widen the income and therefore wealth gap.
The following is from the link you provided, stating that it was “to the research peer-reviewed professional journal article which includes a plethora of citations:”
Quote:
A closer examination of these results leads to three conclusions:
(1) As other scholars have suggested, the US has a more progressive tax structure than the European welfare states. Of the six countries for which it was possible to calculate sales tax, the U.S. is the only country to have an overall progressive tax structure. All other countries for which it is possible to calculate overall tax progressivity have been, and remain, regressive throughout the period of study.
For the 13 countries for which it was possible to calculate income, payroll, and property tax progressivity, the U.S. has the most progressive tax structure; Sweden and Denmark are the most regressive. Our finding of an inverse correlation between tax progressivity and welfare state effort supports those scholars who suggest that regressive taxes allow the growth of the welfare state, while progressive taxes constrain it.
Wouldn’t your simplistic faith-based free market fundamentalist philosophy force you to reject anything that would allow the growth of the welfare state?
Lysander Spooner was a so called abolitionist, & yet also an ardent supporter of the Confederacy advising them on their Constitution.
He advised them to include 4 different clauses to entrench the legality of slavery in a number of different ways, & together they virtually guarantee that any sort of anti-slave law or policy would be unconstitutional.
How can those who lionize this man reconcile this conflict?
Show me evidence that Lysander Spooner was advising the confederacy on how to keep people as slaves. I don't believe you.
He did defend the confederacy in the same way that Ron Paul and many other libertarians tend to defend the confederacy. Why? Do you think Ron Paul wants to "put people back in chains" like Joe Biden said?
"Without presuming to decide the purely legal question, on which it seems evident to me from Madison’s and Hamilton’s papers that the Fathers of the Constitution were not agreed, I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. The institutions of your Republic have not exercised on the old world the salutary and liberating influence which ought to have belonged to them, by reason of those defects and abuses of principle which the Confederate Constitution was expressly and wisely calculated to remedy. I believed that the example of that great Reform would have blessed all the races of mankind by establishing true freedom purged of the native dangers and disorders of Republics. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo." - Lord Acton, letter to Robert E. Lee, 1866
Quote:
"I have considered the preservation of the constitutional power of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.
I need not refer one so well acquainted as you are with American history, to the State papers of Washington and Jefferson, the representatives of the federal and democratic parties, denouncing consolidation and centralization of power, as tending to the subversion of State Governments, and to despotism. The New England states, whose citizens are the fiercest opponents of the Southern states, did not always avow the opinions they now advocate. Upon the purchase of Louisiana by Mr. Jefferson, they virtually asserted the right of secession through their prominent men; and in the convention which assembled at Hartford in 1814, they threatened the disruption of the Union unless the war should be discontinued. The assertion of this right has been repeatedly made by their politicians when their party was weak, and Massachusetts, the leading state in hostility to the South, declares in the preamble to her constitution, that the people of that commonwealth "have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free sovereign and independent state, and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not, or may hereafter be by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in congress assembled."
Such has been in substance the language of other State governments, and such the doctrine advocated by the leading men of the country for the last seventy years. Judge Chase, the present Chief Justice of the U.S., as late as 1850, is reported to have stated in the Senate, of which he was a member, that he "knew of no remedy in case of the refusal of a state to perform its stipulations," thereby acknowledging the sovereignty and independence of state action.
But I will not weary you with this unprofitable discussion. Unprofitable because the judgment of reason has been displaced by the arbitrament of war, waged for the purpose as avowed of maintaining the union of the states... The South has contended only for the supremacy of the constitution, and the just administration of the laws made in pursuance to it. Virginia to the last made great efforts to save the union, and urged harmony and compromise. Senator Douglass, in his remarks upon the compromise bill recommended by the committee of thirteen in 1861, stated that every member from the South, including Messrs. Toombs and Davis, expressed their willingness to accept the proposition of Senator Crittenden from Kentucky, as a final settlement of the controversy, if sustained by the republican party, and that the only difficulty in the way of an amicable adjustment was with the republican party. Who then is responsible for the war? Although the South would have preferred any honorable compromise to the fratricidal war which has taken place, she now accepts in good faith its constitutional results, and receives without reserve the amendment which has already been made to the constitution for the extinction of slavery. That is an event that has been long sought, though in a different way, and by none has it been more earnestly desired than by citizens of Virginia." - Robert E. Lee, Letter to Lord Action, 1866
Lysander Spooner was a so called abolitionist, & yet also an ardent supporter of the Confederacy advising them on their Constitution.
He advised them to include 4 different clauses to entrench the legality of slavery in a number of different ways, & together they virtually guarantee that any sort of anti-slave law or policy would be unconstitutional.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Constitution of the Confederate States of America
Article 1 Section 9.
(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
How can those who lionize this man reconcile this conflict?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Redshadowz
Show me evidence that Lysander Spooner was advising the confederacy on how to keep people as slaves. I don't believe you.
He did defend the confederacy in the same way that Ron Paul and many other libertarians tend to defend the confederacy. Why? Do you think Ron Paul wants to "put people back in chains" like Joe Biden said?
He advised them on changes to their Constitution; will have to locate the book.
Libertarians do tend to obsessively defend the Confederacy, also tend to lack reason.
Lysander Spooner was first & foremost an opportunist. His view held that the US Constitution prohibited slavery.
He supported the Confederacy in their effort to secede in order to protect & expand slavery, & advised them on how to write their Constitution.
The old goat played both sides.
Last edited by ChiGeekGuest; 12-28-2020 at 01:10 PM..
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