Originally posted by Bardock42Well, to be honest, I don't know a whole lot about what we are trying to accomplish over there. But from what I understand of the cost, yes, I would agree, it is crazy expensive, and unless we are doing something worth while, it should be stopped.
Well, I think cutting costs is a big thing. And the most obvious and needless cost is the wars in Iraq an Afghanistan. Would you agree with that, or do you think that should not be cut?
I agree the negativity in politics is awful. But the Dems used against Bush in 06. Was at a Congressman's office and that year it was not about pro our party, it was about we hate Bush and Cheney and we aer going to knock on doors and spread the hate.
Am disappointed though by GOP being the party of no for Obama. Have to say its racist more than anything else. This don't ever raise taxes is just bizarre. I guess the value of money will have to be close to zero before folks wake up and see borrow and spend is just freakish to the wallets of the working class.
Originally posted by inimalist
people need $15 a day to livea poor person makes $20, and a rich person, $25000.
if we tax 25% of the poor person, we only net $5, but their ability to live has been impacted to a major degree. In fact, their tax burden nearly takes away all the money they have to live, prevents them from saving, prevents them from investing, and in general, prevents them from any long term financial planning.
if you tax the rich at 99%, you net $24750, and the rich person still has $250, over 16 times the cost of living.
I'm not advocating we use 5% and 99% as tax rates, but it is unfair, because each dollar you take from a poor person is incredibly more damaging to their personal economic survival than it is for a rich person.
Aside from the sheer pragmatic aspect (the poor don't control enough of the wealth, etc), the idea that fairness is measured in the percentage paid, rather than the real economic impact on people is absurd. like, laughably absurd. Like, I'm going to pay ~2000 in tax this year, making around $17000. 2 grand in my pocket would make a huge difference in my life. You can multiply that rate several times for someone making over $100000, and it wouldn't have even a fraction of an impact on their budget. I can't fathom what kind of calculus you would be doing to say it is more fair to have a flat tax, unless your definition of fair is naively superficial.
lol, ya, I'm going to quote myself, because I have a great story that I think cements my point here...
I took a gender relations course, dealing with Islam and women, where I gave a presentation about some of the issues with Western feminism and why it isn't applicable to the Muslim world.
After the presentation, I got into a fairly heated debate with one of the female students in the class, who was very much what I would call an "extreme" or "dumb" feminist.
The debate wasn't about Islam at all, but more about some of the limitations with feminism in the West itself. Trying to make my point, I gave this example:
Women now outnumber men in university enrollment in all areas save strict math, computers and engineering (and they are closing those gaps too). However, while this is the case, there are still billboards all around the city complaining that girls receive less attention in the class than do boys.
My point was, now that women have, at least, equal opportunity to get into university and post-secondary education, the complaint that they don't get equal class time might reflect certain realities about little boys. For instance, our culture pushes them to be aggressive, competitive (at least more so than girls), certain genetic things, what we consider acceptable "play" for boys, all of these things sort of add up to a situation where sitting and listening quietly for 6-8 hours a day is much more problematic for them than it is for girls, and thus, teachers have to spend more time with them to prevent the class from just totally breaking down. I'd argue that the evidence of unequal attention from teachers reflects how hard school is for little boys, not a bias against little girls, especially in light of the enrollment rates in post-secondary.
The feminist's response to this was, it doesn't matter about enrollment, it is still unequal. At which point I started laughing and ended the conversation... [to be fair, it was her that walked away, so maybe she ended it, lol]
Anyways, if you are arguing that a flat tax is more equal, you are making the exact same argument that she was. Results be damned, everyone needs the exact same. Equality in absolute terms is deemed as more important than equality in relative terms, ie, it was more important that girls get equal class time rather than it being important that girls have equal access and opportunity to get a post secondary education. Its a type of bureaucratic equality that has no meaning in people's lives. And yes, I have used this example to compare conservatives to feminists, because I know they wont like it.
However, the concept is identical. People will never be equal, nor will their contexts be equal, nor will their needs be equal. A flat tax, like absolute equal classroom time, takes none of this into account. It is a superficial understanding of equality, and a poor one at that. The question is, is it more important for equality to mean, that people are actually equal, have equal opportunity and access to resources, or does it mean that, in a strict bureaucratic sense, everyone gets the same thing, regardless of context.
Originally posted by inimalist
lol, ya, I'm going to quote myself, because I have a great story that I think cements my point here...I took a gender relations course, dealing with Islam and women, where I gave a presentation about some of the issues with Western feminism and why it isn't applicable to the Muslim world.
After the presentation, I got into a fairly heated debate with one of the female students in the class, who was very much what I would call an "extreme" or "dumb" feminist.
The debate wasn't about Islam at all, but more about some of the limitations with feminism in the West itself. Trying to make my point, I gave this example:
Women now outnumber men in university enrollment in all areas save strict math, computers and engineering (and they are closing those gaps too). However, while this is the case, there are still billboards all around the city complaining that girls receive less attention in the class than do boys.
My point was, now that women have, at least, equal opportunity to get into university and post-secondary education, the complaint that they don't get equal class time might reflect certain realities about little boys. For instance, our culture pushes them to be aggressive, competitive (at least more so than girls), certain genetic things, what we consider acceptable "play" for boys, all of these things sort of add up to a situation where sitting and listening quietly for 6-8 hours a day is much more problematic for them than it is for girls, and thus, teachers have to spend more time with them to prevent the class from just totally breaking down. I'd argue that the evidence of unequal attention from teachers reflects how hard school is for little boys, not a bias against little girls, especially in light of the enrollment rates in post-secondary.
The feminist's response to this was, [b]it doesn't matter about enrollment, it is still unequal
. At which point I started laughing and ended the conversation... [to be fair, it was her that walked away, so maybe she ended it, lol]Anyways, if you are arguing that a flat tax is more equal, you are making the exact same argument that she was. Results be damned, everyone needs the exact same. Equality in absolute terms is deemed as more important than equality in relative terms, ie, it was more important that girls get equal class time rather than it being important that girls have equal access and opportunity to get a post secondary education. Its a type of bureaucratic equality that has no meaning in people's lives. And yes, I have used this example to compare conservatives to feminists, because I know they wont like it.
However, the concept is identical. People will never be equal, nor will their contexts be equal, nor will their needs be equal. A flat tax, like absolute equal classroom time, takes none of this into account. It is a superficial understanding of equality, and a poor one at that. The question is, is it more important for equality to mean, that people are actually equal, have equal opportunity and access to resources, or does it mean that, in a strict bureaucratic sense, everyone gets the same thing, regardless of context. [/B]
I agree of course with the sentiment. But, I personally haven't done the calculations, but basically the untaxed minimum is alone designed to work against that. If everyone pays no cent on the first say 30 000 (random number), then those people below are not impacted at all, even those at 50000 will only pay 20% on the 20 000 they make over the 30 000 threshold.
Basically you can accomplish pretty much the same thing with a flat tax as with a tax bracket system it just depends on where you put the numbers. (and it is a lot easier)
But well, that's my initial thought really, I'm sure other people have thought about it longer and found reasons why there have to be certain loopholes and why there have to be brackets, but I can't think of one from the top of my head, nor do I remember having heard a particularly convincing one, I am willing to change my mind though.
Originally posted by inimalist
lol, ya, I'm going to quote myself, because I have a great story that I think cements my point here...I took a gender relations course, dealing with Islam and women, where I gave a presentation about some of the issues with Western feminism and why it isn't applicable to the Muslim world.
After the presentation, I got into a fairly heated debate with one of the female students in the class, who was very much what I would call an "extreme" or "dumb" feminist.
The debate wasn't about Islam at all, but more about some of the limitations with feminism in the West itself. Trying to make my point, I gave this example:
Women now outnumber men in university enrollment in all areas save strict math, computers and engineering (and they are closing those gaps too). However, while this is the case, there are still billboards all around the city complaining that girls receive less attention in the class than do boys.
My point was, now that women have, at least, equal opportunity to get into university and post-secondary education, the complaint that they don't get equal class time might reflect certain realities about little boys. For instance, our culture pushes them to be aggressive, competitive (at least more so than girls), certain genetic things, what we consider acceptable "play" for boys, all of these things sort of add up to a situation where sitting and listening quietly for 6-8 hours a day is much more problematic for them than it is for girls, and thus, teachers have to spend more time with them to prevent the class from just totally breaking down. I'd argue that the evidence of unequal attention from teachers reflects how hard school is for little boys, not a bias against little girls, especially in light of the enrollment rates in post-secondary.
The feminist's response to this was, [b]it doesn't matter about enrollment, it is still unequal
. At which point I started laughing and ended the conversation...Anyways, if you are arguing that a flat tax is more equal, you are making the exact same argument that she was. Results be damned, everyone needs the exact same. Equality in absolute terms is deemed as more important than equality in relative terms, ie, it was more important that girls get equal class time rather than it being important that girls have equal access and opportunity to get a post secondary education. Its a type of bureaucratic equality that has no meaning in people's lives. And yes, I have used this example to compare conservatives to feminists, because I know they wont like it.
However, the concept is identical. People will never be equal, nor will their contexts be equal, nor will their needs be equal. A flat tax, like absolute equal classroom time, takes none of this into account. It is a superficial understanding of equality, and a poor one at that. The question is, is it more important for equality to mean, that people are actually equal, have equal opportunity and access to resources, or does it mean that, in a strict bureaucratic sense, everyone gets the same thing, regardless of context. [/B]
I remember that post you quoted of yourself and I did steal the general concept when explaining taxes to an extreme republican friend of mine. He was all about tax relief on the rich and more taxes for the poor because he thought everyone should be burdened equally.
On the feminism thing: I can tell you from personal experience that boys are naturally more aggressive than girls...even from a young age. They have the androgen receptors and slightly elevated testosterone levels, even before they hit puberty (median 0.035 nmol/L and 0.041 nmol/L).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC116575/
I don't know how bio-active that little difference is especially in how it translate to aggression or aggressive play. Anecdotally, the boys seem to be more competitive at a very young age and they physically fight more...even from homes that are those ulta-"RAWR! SPANKING IS TEH DEVIL AND WE HAVE TO BE LIKE MONKS WITH KIDS!".
Maybe you could shed some light from a neuroscience perspective (gender differences in brains, prepubescent.)
Originally posted by Bardock42
I agree of course with the sentiment. But, I personally haven't done the calculations, but basically the untaxed minimum is alone designed to work against that. If everyone pays no cent on the first say 30 000 (random number), then those people below are not impacted at all, even those at 50000 will only pay 20% on the 20 000 they make over the 30 000 threshold.Basically you can accomplish pretty much the same thing with a flat tax as with a tax bracket system it just depends on where you put the numbers. (and it is a lot easier)
But well, that's my initial thought really, I'm sure other people have thought about it longer and found reasons why there have to be certain loopholes and why there have to be brackets, but I can't think of one from the top of my head, nor do I remember having heard a particularly convincing one, I am willing to change my mind though.
I tend to think that still puts undue stress on those at the limit versus those making exceptionally more than the limit.
If wages were at a point such that people at the lower limit were still well above their needs, I suppose it isn't that problematic, but, if government policy is limited to "raise all taxes" to generate revenue, it just seems like it will choke them first.
In good times, with a prosperous economy and good wages, sure, I think it would work. When stuff starts to contract, wages go down and prices go up, a flat tax sort of hinders the states ability to do anything about it, because it unequally harms the lower/middle class to raise those taxes.
Originally posted by dadudemon
I remember that post you quoted of yourself and I did steal the general concept when explaining taxes to an extreme republican friend of mine. He was all about tax relief on the rich and more taxes for the poor because he thought everyone should be burdened equally.
I made this post yesterday.. lol, it was on the last page 🙂
EDIT: did it work?
Originally posted by dadudemon
On the feminism thing: I can tell you from personal experience that boys are naturally more aggressive than girls...even from a young age. They have the androgen receptors and slightly elevated testosterone levels, even before they hit puberty (median 0.035 nmol/L and 0.041 nmol/L).http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC116575/
I don't know how bio-active that little difference is especially in how it translate to aggression or aggressive play. Anecdotally, the boys seem to be more competitive at a very young age and they physically fight more...even from homes that are those ulta-"RAWR! SPANKING IS TEH DEVIL AND WE HAVE TO BE LIKE MONKS WITH KIDS!".
Maybe you could shed some light from a neuroscience perspective (gender differences in brains, prepubescent.)
it doesn't really take neuroscience. I would almost argue that, from neuroscience, these differences don't exist naturally (though, I'm not that extreme). It is far more about socialization and what culture's expectation of boys are.
We define, as in western culture defines, boys as just being more aggressive. One of my favorite examples is this beauty magazine that was like "hottest men and women" or something. All of the men were playing sports, building things, being active, whereas the women were just sitting there being hot. We just expect certain things from boys, and it comes true. Look at the toys they have, look at how big sports are for boys, you can even break it down to the type of attire that is made for children (a lot of girls clothing doesn't allow for active and rough play).
Neuroscience would say most of these things are plastic, and we could have a society that doesn't preset gender roles. This is far more of a social-developmental issue, mixed with cognitive schemas and expectations.
Originally posted by inimalist
I made this post yesterday.. lol, it was on the last page 🙂EDIT: did it work?
If you need me to...I can search for that post and post it here so you will believe me.
Originally posted by lord xyzBecause money in those amounts would devalue the money leading to inflation and/or shortages and doing so by executive order would be unconstitutional since only congress has the ability to authorize fiat currency. The only way to do what you're talking about is as follows. According to the law, president has the authority to mint coins and platinum coins can be priced at any value. We could solve a lot of problems, including the retards in congresses abilities to hold the country hostage by minting the country's platinum reserves into coins, depositing them, and writing checks on the values to the tune of several trillion.
Why can't the banks/government create the money they need to help the poor and not tax?
Originally posted by Darth JelloYou know, I went to http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html and although it says congress can coin money and borrow money, the word fiat or similar isn't listed in congressional powers or otherwise.
Because money in those amounts would devalue the money leading to inflation and/or shortages and doing so by executive order would be unconstitutional since only congress has the ability to authorize fiat currency. The only way to do what you're talking about is as follows. According to the law, president has the authority to mint coins and platinum coins can be priced at any value. We could solve a lot of problems, including the retards in congresses abilities to hold the country hostage by minting the country's platinum reserves into coins, depositing them, and writing checks on the values to the tune of several trillion.
Section 10, "Powers prohibited by states" however lists "emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts" as something the states can't do...I'm guessing the federal government can't do that either.
As for inflation, is increasing the money supply to pay off debts any better?
Originally posted by inimalist
it doesn't really take neuroscience. I would almost argue that, from neuroscience, these differences don't exist naturally (though, I'm not that extreme). It is far more about socialization and what culture's expectation of boys are.
Yes, I'm aware that it is almost entirely environment. This is why I commented on the extreme passive parents that I see that would seem to produce un-aggressive boys.
Originally posted by inimalist
Neuroscience would say most of these things are plastic, and we could have a society that doesn't preset gender roles. This is far more of a social-developmental issue, mixed with cognitive schemas and expectations.
Here's a curve-ball: the gender roll that pretty much every society has for boys is predicated on the fact that boys turn into men with more aggression, test, and androgen receptors.
Meaning...this isn't really a chicken and egg ordeal. The fact that almost 100% of modern humans developed an acceptance of male aggression was present before "humans" actually entered the scene due to a very long line of sexual asymmetry.
Indeed, we find this to be true of evolution in general. Anisogamy (an evolutionary offspring of isogamy) actually promotes biodiversity which contributes better combinations of "different gametes". If the gamete is of the same type, compatibility is rejected. If it is of differing type, they are compatible for fertilization/reproduction.
Bump this process up a few hundred million years and in complexity and you get a binary species: two differing types are required to produce a successful offspring and this is mediated by multiple paths to ensure the best results.
So, I understand why there are a binary species. Would not this be amplified if the "binary" species evolved into hermaphrodites and had an alternate mechanism for detecting how different a member of the same species is? (For example, pheromones have been shown to be useful in determining that another person has a "different" immune system...this also is supposed to slightly prevent inbreeding). It would seem that this is not the case. Regardless, that seems like a simpler mechanism (and easier to evolve) than asymmetric sexuality that ALSO uses mechanisms like the one I explained in my parenthetical. So why did we end up with sexual asymmetry?
It may seem like I'm getting off track, but I'm not.
I say all this to conclude that somehow, nature found the "best" way to produce asymmetrical sexuality. Which has lead to larger, stronger, more agressive males and smaller, less agressive, weaker females.
I say all of this to lead up to this (which you should have guessed a long time ago): society did not really breed this notion that males are supposed to be more aggressive. What "society" is doing is actually an extension of what nature already did. So I don't want to blame society for making males more aggressive: it's just a "compliment" to what nature has already done.
This does slightly conflict with my support of feminism, but not intellectually. Why? Because in our modern society, it is no longer necessary to send your biggest, strongest, most aggressive tribesmen out to hunt. 😐
It's quite obvious that this is not an original thought of my own (from feminism) as this would be the bane and also the primary obstacle to overcome for what I call "good" feminism.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3811161
That writing indicates that some asymmetry really cannot be overcome (with current science) and we have to just deal with it as educated, thinking, and accepting adults.
I'm not able to think very clearly, at the moment, so forgive how scatter-brained my thoughts are. Discussions like these are better handled verbally as each element can be questioned or investigated to make sure we remain on the same page.
But I can try and sum up this way: society did not really create gender roles. Gender roles created by society are just extensions of a socially complex yet sexually asymmetric species. This means I am more forgiving of ignorant "gender roles" than say, an active feminist. I see them as being almost antiquated behaviors.
It works better with an example:
We don't get angry at male birds for protecting the nest while the female "stays at home" "raising the kids." No, I'm not advocating that female humans stay home and raise kids. lol.... In fact, If I could get my wife to make enough money, I would LOVE to be a stay at home dad and raise my kids.
What does this have to do with the thread? In order to have a discourse on the Republican approach to gender, we much explore the background of gender roles and add a dash of feminist perspective.
Originally posted by inimalistDid you consider that those things are expected by our culture, because that is the normal thing to do for those sexes? That makes much more sense to me than what you are insinuating. Otherwise our culture would have had to of evolved in a way that opposes what is normal, which just doesn't happen.
it doesn't really take neuroscience. I would almost argue that, from neuroscience, these differences don't exist naturally (though, I'm not that extreme). It is far more about socialization and what culture's expectation of boys are.We define, as in western culture defines, boys as just being more aggressive. One of my favorite examples is this beauty magazine that was like "hottest men and women" or something. All of the men were playing sports, building things, being active, whereas the women were just sitting there being hot. We just expect certain things from boys, and it comes true. Look at the toys they have, look at how big sports are for boys, you can even break it down to the type of attire that is made for children (a lot of girls clothing doesn't allow for active and rough play).
Neuroscience would say most of these things are plastic, and we could have a society that doesn't preset gender roles. This is far more of a social-developmental issue, mixed with cognitive schemas and expectations.
Girls are "expected" to sit there and look pretty because, girls like to look pretty. Boys are "expected" to be active, and to build things, because, well for one thing a man is physically more powerful than a woman, and they want to be active, they want to build things.
Originally posted by menokokoro
Did you consider that those things are expected by our culture, because that is the normal thing to do for those sexes? That makes much more sense to me than what you are insinuating. Otherwise our culture would have had to of evolved in a way that opposes what is normal, which just doesn't happen.Girls are "expected" to sit there and look pretty because, girls like to look pretty. Boys are "expected" to be active, and to build things, because, well for one thing a man is physically more powerful than a woman, and they want to be active, they want to build things.
your wife must be a very happy woman