I don't see taxes as force, just part of a social contract.
And if we're going to get taxed, why not give some of it to scientific research that doesn't involve better ways to separate heads and limbs from bodies?
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“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
It's his constitutional right to create a road hazard.
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
Ideally with a tax system everyone pays their fair share for the benefit of society as a whole, whereas in racial-based (or any kind of slavery) a segment of the population is exploited for the benefit of the rest of society. With even the worst tax codes you can reform it so that it's fairer without throwing it out. With race-based slavery there's no conceivable way to make it fair without doing away with it completely.
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“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
For certain (read: Libertarian) definitions of fair letting rich people buy any desperately people they want is quite acceptable.
For other (read: hilarious) definitions you could just have slavery quotas. If a black person gets enslaved you have to enslave a white person and half an asian.
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
Nah, it works quite perfectly, actually. Just have to transplant America to a different time period when what I quoted may have actually been heard from the educated.
I can reword that, as well:
"Ideally, with a proper slavery system, everyone, that has the proper resources to own and make use of the subhumans, can do so. It is a benefit for all of society if this system to works."
Yes, I am drawing a direct parallel between taxes and slavery. But, you are making the 'fatal' mistake in your dismissal of slavery: they did not consider the slave "peoples" to be humans so there was no need to take into consideration of this equality between the humans and "subhumans". Obviously, they are humans and you and I both know they are. I am only illustrating that your point can be twisted into something evil if you slide yourself around to different time periods. There must exist a different argument that still makes your point but cannot be supplanted with something disgusting like human slavery.
In fact, the treatment of slaves only makes sense if they were seen as human. The brutality and subjugation many slaves faced had nothing to do with their productivity or their use as farm equipment, but in fact, was a way for white slave owners to affirm what they saw as a divine order between different types of people. Its why you wouldn't beat a tractor and expect it to work harder. I don't disagree with you in theory, just in word choice, because my interpretation of slavery is that they were very much seen as humans, just not the right kind of humans.
sure, but I've asked you to sell me on why that is a superior position to the compromise that everyone has to make to exist in a society, including giving money to things they may not use/like/appreciate.
otherwise it sort of sounds like a spoiled child going "but I don't wanna, you can't make me, its mine!"
I don't. I think there's a better way to state what he wants to state without having to back himself into the "but slavery! derpy doo!" being the counter argument.
For instance, you can state that the greatest amount of good is served with the least amount of harm to all humanoids (suck, pro-slavers (yes, they do exist)) if taxes are collected and used efficiently. That's an argument of moral relativism but uses pragmatic ethics.*
The argument of slavery, on the other hand, cannot claim a maximized benefit with the least amount of harm.
*Obviously, taxes are not the best solution: pure communism (the good kind of communism) would be the best solution were it possible.
You may have already stated it (I know you have a few years back when we were talking about NASA) but what do you think are superlative benefits* of government funded science as opposed to free-market science?
*Such as: "Government funded science offers the greatest amount of funding." That's just an example and I hope I didn't steal your thunder.
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Last edited by dadudemon on Jul 21st, 2012 at 11:27 PM
In utilitarianism the more power moral actors have the more happiness they are able to create. Control over a population can be used to improve its happiness.
Or more quickly: "They'll be happier as slaves."
You can disagree with that, of course, but it is a point that can be argued (and quite well).
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Graffiti outside Latin class.
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A juvenal prank.
I have heard this same exact argument from "pro-slavers".
The counter-argument to that is: "They have not lived a free life and can, therefore, not choose to be in slavery with an informed mind."
Then we just add in a dash of the absurdity that pretty much no one wants to live as a slave: slave or free (this is based off of my studies of American Slavery of Africans...I had a hard time finding a single slave/formerly enslaved express the desire to be enslaved). Then there's your confirmation that the argument is flawed from its inception.
It boils down to this: To be able to choose is better than not to be able to choose.
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Last edited by dadudemon on Jul 22nd, 2012 at 12:34 AM