Never let anyone else define you. Don't be a jerk just to be a jerk, but if you are expressing your true inner feelings and beliefs, or at least trying to express that inner child, and everyone gets pissed off about it, never NEVER apologize for it. Let them think what they want, let them define you in their narrow little minds while they suppress every last piece of them just to keep a friend that never liked them for themselves in the first place.
I was trying to highlight that if posters play by the rules they mostly stay.
Additionally, if you did harbor some secret antipathy towards the right I can't imagine a right wing poster being inflammatory would get your most angelic side lol
'member when Bash got banned for 1 day for telling someone to kill themselves despite many other members getting banned for months for the same thing? I certainly do re-'member
Mods suck Bash's dick
btw I don't give a shit about the KMC VS Discord discussion, both suck ass in different ways, Discord is the better app for actual discussion and there's more active chat on the Discord but idk, whatever, there are also open Nazis on the Discord lmao. Anyway KMC isn't far left; KMC is a Democrat echo chamber. None of the KMC left oppose capitalism, so they're not far-left, just auth-left (Whirly is the furthest left as an "old school trade unionist", so he still drains Capitalism's nutsack with great joy and gusto). I oppose capitalism in all of its forms and think it needs to be destroyed for the survival of mankind, so I'd say I'm easily further left than all of the KMC left, combined. All cops are bastards, smash the gender binary, capitalism is the way of weak hungry dogs and their cruel faceless masters. Suck it mother****ers
Yeah it's kind of weird how I get labeled the far left when I'm not even sure how far left I am. Here in America from the viewpoint of conservatives I'm a radical leftists.
Honestly the topics I lean the most left on is things like Climate Change and Income Inequality. I feel though I lean more left on solutions to those problems because we've let them get so bad we're going to need massive changes to start to fix them and help people.
And for a lot of other policies and stances I really am just like can we at least catch to the rest of the modernized world on things like Universal Healthcare. Which doesn't seem that extreme to me.
Well imo 'capitalism' is antithetical to free trade. Capitalism is what we live under, one holistic system of systems, a top-down centralised system of faux-market trade where small companies are bought up and consumed, the consumer is the ultimate proletariat, and only the feudal billionaire masters succeed.
We don't live under free trade. Capitalism is economic feudalism, a system of masters and slaves. It is all-consuming and all-commanding.
By the gender binary I mean basically whatever, really. Tech can do so much these days. No business of mine tho, if people want to have vat-babies then go for it, families are ****ed up at the best of times so I can't imagine tech doing anything that humans haven't already done to alienate offspring from parent.
I get why religious people are so concerned about trans/gay people but I do not get why not-religious people give a shit. Times are changing. They always have. I welcome the destruction and transformation of traditional gender roles as I do not think they have served humanity efficiently nor ethically well enough. They'll change regardless of my opinion tho.
Also I agree with you regarding all governmental personnel. The state is bad. The state is oppression defined. But I include feudal systems such as global capitalism within that bracket; they're all systems of control, to limit human innovation and creativity. No coercive hierarchy is justified.
Passion is where it's at. I get along with liberals, leftists, conservatives, libertarians, commies, anarchists. I don't mind as long as the discourse is vital and interesting. Those who believe they are correct are always wrong; those who seek knowledge will always find themselves sated in the everlasting conversation of man (lol, perhaps slightly OTT,).
You strike me as general left, but fairly left as far as it goes. We've agreed on many issues, iirc. American politics muddies the waters; everyone is either a commie or a fash if they stray out of perfect party politics.
Politically I identify as a Pessimist. I do not think any system will create a perfect outcome. The world, and humans, are likely ****ed, by now. Capitalism (the ruling global feudal economic system) is going to drain us dry regardless before we have a chance to combat it. The only option is revolution, true and violent revolution, and that will come at the cost of many human lives and may not even work anyway.
Hence why I'm fine dealing with issues in context. I can debate the finer details all I like, for fun, but chances are we're all screwed. Democracy is capitalism. Incremental change is useless. Revolution equals chaos and death. Welcome to Planet Earth.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines taxation as "that part of the revenues of a state which is obtained by the compulsory dues and charges upon its subjects." That is about as concise and accurate as a definition can be; it leaves no room for argument as to what taxation is.
In that statement of fact the word "compulsory" looms large, simply because of its ethical content. The quick reaction is to question the "right" of the state to this use of power. What sanction, in morals, does the state adduce for the taking of property? Is its exercise of sovereignty sufficient unto itself?
On this question of morality there are two positions, and never the twain will meet. Those who hold that political institutions stem from "the nature of man," thus enjoying vicarious divinity, or those who pronounce the state the keystone of social integrations, can find no quarrel with taxation per se; the state's taking of property is justified by its being or its beneficial office. On the other hand, those who hold to the primacy of the individual, whose very existence is his claim to inalienable rights, lean to the position that in the compulsory collection of dues and charges the state is merely exercising power, without regard to morals.
The present inquiry into taxation begins with the second of these positions. It is as biased as would be an inquiry starting with the similarly unprovable proposition that the state is either a natural or a socially necessary institution. Complete objectivity is precluded when an ethical postulate is the major premise of an argument and a discussion of the nature of taxation cannot exclude values.
If we assume that the individual has an indisputable right to life, we must concede that he has a similar right to the enjoyment of the products of his labor. This we call a property right. The absolute right to property follows from the original right to life because one without the other is meaningless; the means to life must be identified with life itself.
If the state has a prior right to the products of one's labor, his right to existence is qualified. Aside from the fact that no such prior right can be established, except by declaring the state the author of all rights, our inclination (as shown in the effort to avoid paying taxes) is to reject this concept of priority. Our instinct is against it. We object to the taking of our property by organized society just as we do when a single unit of society commits the act. In the latter case we unhesitatingly call the act robbery, a malum in se. It is not the law which in the first instance defines robbery, it is an ethical principle, and this the law may violate but not supersede.
If by the necessity of living we acquiesce to the force of law, if by long custom we lose sight of the immorality, has the principle been obliterated? Robbery is robbery, and no amount of words can make it anything else.
We look at the results of taxation, the symptoms, to see whether and how the principle of private property is violated. For further evidence, we examine its technique, and just as we suspect the intent of robbery in the possession of effective tools, so we find in the technique of taxation a telltale story. The burden of this intransigent critique of taxation, then, will be to prove the immorality of it by its consequences and its methods.
By way of preface, we might look to the origin of taxation, on the theory that beginnings shape ends, and there we find a mess of iniquity. A historical study of taxation leads inevitably to loot, tribute, ransom — the economic purposes of conquest. The barons who put up tollgates along the Rhine were tax-gatherers. So were the gangs who "protected," for a forced fee, the caravans going to market. The Danes who regularly invited themselves into England, and remained as unwanted guests until paid off, called it Dannegeld; for a long time that remained the basis of English property taxes.
The conquering Romans introduced the idea that what they collected from subject peoples was merely just payment for maintaining "law and order." For a long time the Norman conquerors collected catch-as-catch-can tribute from the English, but when by natural processes an amalgam of the two peoples resulted in a nation, the collections were regularized in custom and law and were called taxes. It took centuries to obliterate the idea that these exactions served but to keep a privileged class in comfort and to finance their internecine wars; in fact, that purpose was never denied or obscured until constitutionalism diffused political power.
All that is long passed, unless we have the temerity to compare such ancient skullduggery with reparations, extraterritoriality, charges for maintaining armies of occupation, absconding with property, grabbing of natural resources, control of arteries of trade and other modern techniques of conquest. It may be argued that even if taxation had an unsavory beginning it could have straightened itself out and become a decent and useful citizen. So, we must apply ourselves to the theory and practices of taxation to prove that it is in fact the kind of thing above described.
First, as to method of collection, taxation falls into two categories, direct and indirect. Indirect taxes are so called because they reach the state by way of private collectors, while direct taxes arrive without bypass. The former levies are attached to goods and services before they reach the consumer, while the latter are in the main demands upon accumulations of wealth.
It will be seen that indirect taxation is a permission-to-live price. You cannot find in the marketplace a single satisfaction to which a number of these taxes are not attached, hidden in the price, and you are under compulsion either to pay them or go without; since going without amounts to depriving yourself of the meaning of life, or even of life itself, you pay.
The inevitability of this charge on existence is expressed in the popular association of death and taxes. And it is this very characteristic that commends indirect taxation to the state, so that when you examine the prices of things you live by, you are astounded by the disproportion between the cost of production and the charge for permission to buy. Somebody has put the number of taxes carried by a loaf of bread at over one hundred; obviously, some are not ascertainable, for it would be impossible to allocate to each loaf its share of taxes on the broom used in the bakery, on the axle-grease used on the delivery wagon.
Whiskey is perhaps the most notorious example of the way products have been transmuted from satisfactions into tax gatherers. The manufacturing cost of a gallon of whiskey, for which the consumer pays around twenty dollars, is less than a half-dollar; the spread is partly accounted for in the costs of distribution, but most of the money which passes over the counter goes to maintain city, county, state and national officials.
The hue and cry over the cost of living would make more sense if it were directed at taxation, the largest single item in the cost. It should be noted too that though the cost-of-living problem affects mainly the poor, yet it is on this segment of society that the incidence of indirect taxation falls most heavily. This is necessarily so; since those in the lower earning brackets constitute the major portion of society they must account for the greatest share of consumption, and therefore for the greatest share of taxation. The state recognizes this fact in levying on goods of widest use. A tax on salt, no matter how small comparatively, yields much more than a tax on diamonds, and is of greater significance socially and economically.
It is not the size of the yield, nor the certainty of collection, which gives indirect taxation preeminence in the state's scheme of appropriation. Its most commendable quality is that of being surreptitious. It is taking, so to speak, while the victim is not looking. Those who strain themselves to give taxation a moral character are under obligation to explain the state's preoccupation with hiding taxes in the price of goods. Is there a confession of guilt in that? In recent years, in its search for additional revenue, the state has been tinkering with a sales tax, an outright and unequivocal permission-to-live price; wiser solons have opposed this measure on the ground of political expediency. Why? If the state serves a good purpose the producers will hardly object to paying its keep.
Follow an importation of raw silk, from importer to cleaner, to spinner, to weaver, to finisher, to manufacturer, to wholesaler, to retailer, each one adding his mark-up to the price paid his predecessor, and you will see that in the price milady pays for her gown there is much more than the tariff schedule demands. This fact alone helps to make merchants and manufacturers indifferent to the evils of protection.Merely as a matter of method, not with deliberate intent, indirect taxation yields a profit of proportions to private collectors, and for this reason opposition to the levies could hardly be expected from that corner. When the tax is paid in advance of the sale it becomes an element of cost which must be added to all other costs in computing price. As the expected profit is a percentage of the total outlay, it will be seen that the tax itself becomes a source of gain. Where the merchandise must pass through the hands of several processors and distributors, the profits pyramided on the tax can run up to as much as, if not more than, the amount collected by the state. The consumer pays the tax plus the compounded profits. Particularly notorious in this regard are customs duties.
Tacit support for indirect taxation arises from another byproduct. Where a considerable outlay in taxes is a prerequisite for engaging in a business, large accumulations of capital have a distinct competitive advantage, and these capitalists could hardly be expected to advocate a lowering of the taxes. Any farmer can make whiskey, and many of them do; but the necessary investment in revenue stamps and various license fees makes the opening of a distillery and the organizing of distributive agencies a business only for large capital.
Taxation has forced the individually owned and congenial grog shop to give way to the palatial bar under mortgage to the brewery or distillery. Likewise, the manufacture of cigarettes is concentrated in the hands of a few giant corporations by the help of our tax system; nearly three-quarters of the retail price of a package of cigarettes represents an outlay in taxes. It would be strange indeed if these interests were to voice opposition to such indirect taxes (which they never do) and the uninformed, inarticulate and unorganized consumer is forced to pay the higher price resulting from limited competition.
Direct taxes differ from indirect taxes not only in the manner of collection but also in the more important fact that they cannot be passed on; those who pay them cannot demand reimbursement from others. In the main, the incidence of direct taxation falls on incomes and accumulations rather than on goods in the course of exchange. You are taxed on what you have, not on something you buy; on the proceeds of enterprise or the returns from services already rendered, not on anticipated revenue. Hence there is no way of shifting the burden. The payer has no recourse.
The clear-cut direct taxes are those levied on incomes, inheritances, gifts, land values. It will be seen that such appropriations lend themselves to soak-the-rich propaganda, and find support in the envy of the incompetent, the bitterness of poverty, the sense of injustice which our monopoly economy engenders. Direct taxation has been advocated since colonial times (along with universal suffrage), as the necessary implementation of democracy, as the essential instrument of "leveling."
The opposition of the rich to direct taxation added virulence to the reformers who plugged for it. In normal times the state is unable to overcome this well-knit, articulate, and resourceful opposition. But, when war or the need of ameliorating mass poverty strains the purse of the state to the limit, and further indirect impositions are impossible or threaten social unrest, the opposition must give way. The state never relinquishes entirely the prerogatives it acquires during an "emergency," and so, after a series of wars and depressions, direct taxation became a fixture of our fiscal policy, and those upon whom it falls must content themselves to whittling down the levies or trying to transfer them from shoulder to shoulder.
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Jun 2nd, 2021 04:02 PM
