Wolfshade wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E

I'm gonna read the rest of the posts, but this has to be said first: Dear god, my campus is in Berea, OH, neighbors of Strongsville. I live next to those people.............................

Wow, nevermind. I refuse to read the posts in this topic. I got halfway through the first page and the lot of you are making me sick. I thought they might actually be about the original article, but no, you're down slinging dirt saying "You're stupid!" "No you're stupid!".

Last edited by Ad1tu (2008-10-27 10:51:01)

Ad1tu wrote:

Wow, nevermind. I refuse to read the posts in this topic. I got halfway through the first page and the lot of you are making me sick. I thought they might actually be about the original article, but no, you're down slinging dirt saying "You're stupid!" "No you're stupid!".

Really? I saw some interesting debate. I do think that people have taken issue with the way the original post framed the discussion (I don't buy that "the communist" is an attempt at humour, except in retrospective revision/retreat), but it has always been fair game to comment on other people's comments.

Also, not to put too fine a point on it, this forum is called "Halls of Fire".

Kiema wrote:

Taxes were meant to collect revenue in order to support the government (typically in times of war).  It was not created or modified to make things "fair."  It is not supposed to be about redistributing wealth, but that is what it has become.  No, I don't know who decided to transfer its principles from revenue to let's make things fair.

That's an interesting point.  Countries across the world began to move from property taxes (and property franchises as well) towards income taxation from as early as the beginning of the 20th century, but more so in the Depression era.  The concept of a Welfare State saw the state taking on the function of insuring against hardship - old age pensions were the first in NZ, then unemployment relief, housing assistance, state education, healthcare and so on in the 30s.  The US equivalent is the New Deal.

The crucial backdrop to this expansion of the state's role was the apparent failure of market capitalism in the Crash of 29 and subsequent Depression, but more importantly the rise of Communism in the USSR and strong Socialist movements worldwide.  For the well-off, taking the edge of capitalism's tendency to exclude the very poor is a whole lot cheaper than resisting a Communist revolution.  For the poor, it's clearly a better deal to elect a redistributive government than to have to overthrow a laissez-faire one.  For these reasons, progressive taxation (for example you pay 20% on your first $30k of income, and 30% on the next, and 40% on anything over that) is the norm amongst Western countries.  To some degree the US is a bit of a special case - the American Dream being such a powerful myth (in the sense that it's an idea that motivates people, not in the sense that its an untrue story), that many people who would benefit from a redistributive government see themselves as potentially rich, and therefore vote to protect their imaginary earnings should they hit the big time one way or another.

You could argue that the people through their elected representatives over the last 70 years decided that was an appropriate use of their money.  For libertarians, that's a tricky one - what do you do when people consistently use their political freedoms to vote for systems that restrict their economic freedoms?  Arguing about what taxes are meant for and what they're not meant for is a bit futile when the decision is ultimately made by millions of voters with their own opinions on the matter.  The 1980s under Reagan and Thatcher saw a revival of neo-liberalism - smaller governments, less welfare, more private sector provision, but those ideas don't have the currency they once did in most countries.  A number of the neo-liberal claims of the efficiency of the free market aren't borne out by real world experience - see the US health sector.

The weird part is that while NZ is much more into the welfare state kind of idea than the US, it has a very free trade kind of economy - companies sink or swim by their own merit, and rarely get protection or subsidies.  The US, on the other hand, talks the talk about the land of the free etc, but funnels tonnes of taxpayer dollars into import protection, trade subsidies, corporate welfare and so on.

I wasn't trying to be snarky when I suggested Malachy get a blog. In fact, I'm quite serious about it. It is a far better location for the things he wants to write about than this message board.

Binky brings up a good question -- one that I've mulled over at least a few times, especially when we were moving the boards to the new site. 

We originally created the Halls because we were beseiged by another individual with trollish behavior who was also very spammy and a flat-out plagiarist -- and a smallish group of members had taken up the challenges with relish, and the debates raged. No one could escape from the discussions because they were shown in excerpt on the old board's Active Topics page. And topic after topic after topic was being hijacked by the Debaters until the whole environment around here went very sour, and we lost a considerable number of members who have -still- not returned. Old timers will remember these bad old days, I'm sure.

Thus, we created the Halls, to try to confine the discussions to one spot on the forums so most of the rest of us could avoid them. The Active Topics still displayed the conversations, but at least they were no longer spattered over -all- of the other topics.

When we moved to the new site, I thought long and hard about whether we should still have the Halls or not, but fell on the side of keeping them -- largely because I'm generally opposed to just losing a big chunk of our 'history' and I'm quite sure that other members would agree, but also because we do occasionally need a place for such topics. Especially when the world takes a crazy(ier) turn. So the wiser course seemed to me at the time to retain them. 

However, if the rest of you would like to discuss whether we should keep the Halls or not, let's discuss it -- but we should start a new topic for the purpose.

And Malachy: please do consider finding a personal platform of your very own for your essays. You are still welcome to participate in the community here, of course, but it would be fitting to retain your lengthier posts for your own space. And before you believe I am singling you out for such a suggestion, please know that the same has been suggested to others who have, in the past, cross-posted their entire blogs to these boards -- another practice that is frowned upon, not just here but broadly across the 'net. These individuals have kindly complied with the suggestion to refrain from cross-posting and still feel free to interact here as well. It is a happy compromise. If you provide a link to your blog in your sig here, members of the community who want to engage in lengthy discussion with you will happily follow your link.

For me, personally, no debate is necessary.  I love this community, and I'm a part of this community - pitched a tent in the neighborhood and everything - but I'm ever cognizant of the fact that I'm playing in someone else's back yard.  Tad chose certain people to keep an eye on his board - hierarchs and mantiseseseses - so whatever they decide is fine with me.

Oops, should I have waited for the new topic?

Last edited by cyan (2008-10-27 21:00:36)

I thought I'd pop in and apologize - sorry for being a dick to you Malachy, even when everyone is all worked up around an election or whatever everyone should still try to be respectful while disagreeing which I EPIC FAIL! didn't manage to do, so sorry about that.