Portland's Inequality Tax

Truck drivers (semis) make 43K wage in MD. Can’t get much less skilled than that.
And no offense, one of my best friends (who is a model of an upright man) drives one.

Maybe we are approaching a time where one member of the family works (operating an automated station) and the other is a homemaker.

Or simply tier the corproate rate to the CEO to mean salary ratio of a C corp. So, 400x = 0, 500x = 10%, etc…

It take more skill to drive a semi, including having a different license, than to flip a hamburger or pick a product from a location…

I’m willing to bet the supply of truck drivers is much lower than hamburger flippers, too.

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Don’t live in it? I’m convinced most of you haven’t even visited it.

Re: your proposed restatement: sorry, but that isn’t what I or anyone else has said. But not every compulsion outside of your freedom is theft or an evil. That’s a juvenile philosophy.

Have any examples here?

Currently sitting on pdx public transportation. It smells like booze and sewage. The only thing worse is a lady’s smoker throat laugh.

I was homeless. Worked at Walmart for 2.5 years. Paid fo colllege off academic and athletic scholarships and started a small business that now employs five people.

Which world do I live in?

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Some people will argue these but: Emancipation Proclamation, 13th Amendment, 19th Amendmant, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, OS&H Act of 1970 (before which, it was cheaper for businesses to replace dead workers, than to self-regulate - lol - but may not apply as much in our economy now.)

Just a few I thought of.

Related to this thread. NYT, Free Cash in Finland. Must Be Jobless.

Article explores the idea of giving people a minimum income. As most of you know, Finland has an unemployment problem, and a generous social safety net that often discourages people from looking. This kind of thing may become more of a thing as we loose jobs to automation. Robots now taking your order or flipping your burger. As an aside, making the earned income tax credit more generous is one way to go about some of this, if the goal is to put more money into the hands of the working poor, here in the US.

From the Article -

"Libertarians see it as a means of shrinking government by consolidating social service programs. Liberals envision it as a way to remove the stigma of public assistance: Instead of standing in line at the grocery store bearing food stamps while suffering the judgment of other shoppers — Shouldn’t she be buying spinach instead of frozen pizza? — poor people would get the same check as everyone else.

The technology world has seized on basic income as the response to automation and its threat of joblessness. If everyone’s needs are being met, then society can embrace robots and liberation from drudge work.

Yet the expensive price tag attached to anything that is truly universal makes it a political nonstarter in many countries — especially in the United States, where Mr. Trump just appointed a labor secretary who is critical of simply raising the minimum wage.

If every American were to receive just $10,000 a year, the tab would be roughly $3 trillion a year, roughly eight times what the United States now spends on social service programs. The government might just as well commit to handing out unicorns.

Beyond arithmetic, basic income confronts fundamental disagreements about human reality. If people are released from fears that — absent work — they risk finding themselves sleeping outdoors, will they devolve into freeloaders?

“Some people think basic income will solve every problem under the sun, and some people think it’s from the hand of Satan and will destroy our work ethic…”

Well, the obvious one is that taxation is not theft, which is where libertarians usually head.

But, for starters, laws that prohibit you from neglecting your children.

Laws that make you drive in the right side of the road.

Laws that prohibit discrimination based on race.

No idea? While your story is compelling (even inspiring), it doesn’t shine much light on @Alrightmiami19c’s quote, which I was responding to - that is, the idea that anyone who doesn’t see the libertarian’s view of freedom makes the leap (no points in between) to “freedom is immoral, theft is virtuous” (or however he phrased it) makes it seem as though they’ve never set foot in the real world.

Can I have some the the grass you’re smoking please?

You’re way the fuck out in left field here.

What is it then?

You’re not “free” to neglect your children though. You’re free to “give them up” to the state, which makes one a fucking scumbag, or have them aborted, which also is evil, but you aren’t free, under any libertarian thought I’ve read to neglect your children.

Maybe you’re reading different magazines and articles than I am, but I’ve never seen anyone claim they are free to bring children into the world, and then let that responsibility, willfully taken, fall on others, or let harm fall on the children themselves.

I mean, if you’re going to shit on the NAP, etc, at least shit on it for what it is.

Fine, fair enough. I can see rules in place strictly for order. [quote=“thunderbolt23, post:349, topic:224248”]
Laws that prohibit discrimination based on race.
[/quote]

So you’re down to get rid of affirmative action then?

(I could go on here on this point, but this should suffice for now.)

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Theft means your property is taken without your consent. Taxation is taken with your (implied) consent if taxation is established in law by duly democratic and lawful means.

[quote]You’re not “free” to neglect your children though. You’re free to “give them up” to the state, which makes one a fucking scumbag, or have them aborted, which also is evil, but you aren’t free, under any libertarian thought I’ve read to neglect your children.

Maybe you’re reading different magazines and articles than I am, but I’ve never seen anyone claim they are free to bring children into the world, and then let that responsibility, willfully taken, fall on others, or let harm fall on the children themselves. [/quote]

Sure, you’re free to neglect your children under libertarian theory. You have only an obligation to yourself and relationships in which you contract through your own free will. There’s no such contract with your kids - once in the world, they become individuals, and you’re under no obligation to do anything with respect to that individual without your consent. Again, under libertarian theory.

Now, I think there is a moral duty to do so independent of written law, but so important is this duty that we go ahead and codify it so there is formal pain and penalty of you don’t comply with it.

Nice dodge, but you’re not off the hook - anti-discrimination laws enforce a morality and limit your freedom, do they not? I gave you an example - you agree with me then?

If government exists to protect individual rights it would seem clear where the line is on compulsion. But not all of us agree to the stated role of government.

True, and our governments (federal and state) have never served only to protect individual rights.

SO as long as I’m part of the 49.9% of people that vote “no” on taxation, I’m not implying my consent?

Under this justification was being a slave (implied) consent in 1829?

No, not really. I’m not sure where you are reading, lol, but it might explain your utter disdain for libertarianism.

Yes there is. Once you bring them into the world through voluntary action, you are committing to a contract to raise them until they can take care of themselves.

In my defense I did say I could go on here. :wink:

Depends on the angle you are taking with this. (Which is why I asked the question for your question.) So, I agree with you, if you’re attacking this from one angle, and know you’re wrong if you take another.

Dude above you tried to say that the “emancipation proclamation” was an example, which is asinine on completely new levels, because no one was “free” to enslave another. Just because the law said ti was okay, doesn’t mean you were actually free to do it. Libertarian theory can’t allow slavery, therefore laws ending the government “okay” of slavery aren’t infringing on your freedom, as you never had the freedom to enslave another in the first place.

But this is why you hate libertarianism. It deals in principle first then works towards reality. You deal with reality of a situation first then work towards principle. Neither is wrong. But take the slavery example. A Libertarian would say you were never free to own people in the first place, even if the law said you could. You say you were free to do so because the law said you could… Do you see why the conversation is going to break down and go nowhere?

Why wouldn’t people bring children into the world merely to have something to neglect? Nine months of pregnancy: a small price to pay for a trashable plaything. Look at all of the mothers, all over the globe, who rejoice in allowing their children to starve before their very eyes(most of whom are eating to their heart’s content all the while). Such neglect would be horrifyingly prevalent without the nanny state ensuring that it doesn’t happen. We also know that the fathers of the children would(and should, of course) not do anything to prevent their offspring’s suffering.

Just picture the successful and long-lived society that would spring up: Women purposefully getting themselves pregnant so that they could neglect a child. Men not caring about any of those children. Children dying in infancy. Wait…I guess this society full of the worst possible folks in just about any society would last for about one generation at most. I wonder whether the women getting pregnant for the sole purpose of having a child to neglect would be willing to sell that child to the highest bidder and to have themselves sterilized.

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Yes, you are implying your consent.

No, slaves were not participating in the passage of laws affecting themselves.

(This sets aside slavery’s violation of natural rights, focused only on implied consent by and through democracy here.)

No, not really. I’m not sure where you are reading, lol, but it might explain your utter disdain for libertarianism.

What contract? Can you show it to me?

But you’re also mistaken - it can’t be a contract, because you’re saying a person is bound by the duty to take care of the kids whether they consent to or not.

That’s entirely my point. It doesn’t square with libertarian theory because it involves an obligation for which consent is completely irrelevant.

I’m fine with that - I think there is such a duty, a moral duty, that exists beyond consent. And the existence of that duty suggests that other similar non-contractual duties also exist.

[quote]But this is why you hate libertarianism. It deals in principle first then works towards reality. You deal with reality of a situation first then work towards principle. Neither is wrong. But take the slavery example. A Libertarian would say you were never free to own people in the first place, even if the law said you could. You say you were free to do so because the law said you could… Do you see why the conversation is going to break down and go nowhere?
[/quote]

I don’t hate libertarianism, it’s just that it always leads to absurd results that can’t work in the real world.

And your slavery example misses the point - laws can be in violation of morality. Laws permitting slavery is a perfect example. Just because a law was passed doesn’t insure its moral adequacy. I never claimed as much.

But we were talking about taxation, money needed and used to pay for public services, not human bondage.

And I believe in exactly what you say is right - starting from principle and adjusting as needed to conform to the real world. That makes sense. Libertarianism is actually the opposite of what you say it is - it insists reality is something that it’s not, and never has been.

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It’s in the same contract that shows I implied my consent to be taxed.

Again, I’ve never once seen a libertarian argue that a willful pregnancy, choosing to bring a child into the world, doesn’t obligate one to take care of their child. Of course it does.

Not sure why you feel the need to construct this strawman here.

I know we agree on this, and it’s why I bring it up.

I’m not arguing need here. Need isn’t even within the scope of the conversation. The issue is whether or not taxation is theft of one’s earned property. Because if I break into my neighbor’s house and steal all their property to pay for the local school’s budget shortage, I’m still stealing, it’s still wrong, even though we all needed that money.

If I don’t pay my taxes, I go to prison. That is taking my property by threat of force, or actual force if I push my hand.

I think you’re confusing ancaps and strict volunteerists here with the larger pot of “libertarian”. While I’m none of the three in reality, I’d rather deal with an ancap on issues than a Contemporary American Liberal…

I didn’t know this as a term.
However, whenever I have longed for its ‘freedom and independence’, a quick stroll through even the most ancient history or anthropology (ie 6000 years ago) shows social contracts. Failure to adhere led to punishment, banishment, etc.

To relate to this thread, there is an expectation of this in the concept of If a person contributes to society through work, they should be able to get a place at the table. Not at the head and probably a wing rather than the breast. But not one person having 30 pies, while dozens share the crumbs that are brushed off the lap. Ii will also acknowledge the mistake of expanding the natural obligation of society taking care of the weakest members (elderly widows, orphans) into a permanent welfare of able bodied in violation of “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”

Failure of any of the three - one getting too much, not caretaking defenseless, or able not contributing - upset the contract.

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It has been this way since inception of human society. It will always be this way.

The simple fact of the matter is today, it isn’t a drastic as you describe, not at all. The spread between wealthy and poor in today’s America isn’t as large as it was 100, 200 or at any point in human history.

Poor people have so much food they are fat. Poor people have cars, cell phones, cable TV, modern flat screens, entertainment systems, window air conditioning. So on and so forth. Rich people have nicer versions of all that… That’s it.

100 Years ago poor people were starving in street gutters, and wearing bread bags on their feet for shoes.

Look any honest perusal through human history, like you mentioned, pretty much points out that using the histrionic language you are is basically envious whining. And is getting towards calls, dangerous calls, for government intervention that boarder on insane. (At least that is the fear.)

If you’re already doing your part, why the Marxist “social contract” mumbo jumbo?

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