You keep talking about ‘rights’ - natural for instance. Where does a ‘right’ come from exactly?
Because as far as I understand, it’s now just a word people used to describe free shit they expect government to pay for .
“I have a right to healthcare!”
“I have a right to an education!”
As the problems and disputes you describe make plain, the issues that arise when we contemplate what it means to ‘own’ and ‘sell’ property are both fraught and complex.
Nick, that’s a great post.
Theory aside, there is a point when what is reasonable or necessary crosses a line and becomes oppressive or unjust. I get so tired of all the little rules, and rule minders, and the size of the administrative state. We’ve created complexity that makes everyone a rule breaker if you look close enough.
Even for our children, so many playground rules governing every aspect of their behavior. “You will not run on the blacktop” (because you could scrape a knee) kinds of rules. We’re training them to accept that it’s better to have lots of rules than to be free.
But this is a giant red herring. You want to complain that the state has gone beyond the authorization given to it by its citizens (which is your point above), be my guest - but that isn’t what we are talking about.
We’re talking about the discrete issue of whether a citizen has consented to have his income diminished by taxation, or whether he hasn’t and whether such diminution is theft.
If the government has improperly gone beyond the boundaries of the powers we’ve delegated to it, different topic, different issue. There’s no dispute that we’ve delegated the power to tax to the government.
In most yes it does But Im happy for you if you parents life energy so great that you put out little of your own to live well.
How much do you really own that did not come from your own work? If you are like most of us the answer is almost nothing
Even with what I take to be your use of these terms, I would say you are incorrect. Intergenerational transfer of wealth is an enormous source of wealth inequality in our country. And I’m not talking about the transfer of vast wealth from superwealthy parents to their children; I’m talking about middle-class folks who own a home being able to provide at least some support so that their children can go to college. The point being, for those of us fortunate enough to come from at least middle-class means, our ability as adults to produce wealth did not spring de novo from our own activities. We did not hit a home run; rather, all of us were born on-base (albeit some of us at first, and a lucky few at third).
But setting that issue aside: Like I said above, one’s labors do not occur in a vacuum. It is difficult to envision productive (ie, remunerative) labor that can be performed that is not dependent upon the labor of others, and upon resources that were extracted from the commons (or what was once the commons). Thus, the origination problem is inherent in all labor.
I was defining what money actually is. The fact that somebody can be extremely productive and transfer the product of their life energy to another generation. That is totally irrelevant to what it is.
You are now getting into general excuses for taking the life and life energy of another human. Because they were more productive than you are. Or their father was. That doesn’t change the fact that you are taking from the product of their labor. Even if it was a previous generations labor, it was still theirs. it’s not yours and it’s not societies.
Best to remember what taxes are actually taking and not play word games with it. There were a people in Russia called surfs. Concidered to br little more than slaves. Because 10℅ of all they produced was taken from them by the nobles
Yeah, the money that I want to leave to my children should definitely be given to the government.
(Eye Roll)
Oh sure it is Verne. The far left wants to redistribute until we are all equal. Sort of like…no exactly like any good socialist society.
Pure bull.
Still having trouble with that eye roll I see. Botox is expensive, but will definitely help with that. I assume you wouldn’t mind me using supersharp needles to perform injections deep in your orbit?
Money is not “life energy.” Money is a social construct representing value emerging from the confluence of labor and resources.
No, I am arguing that one is not the sole owner of the pre-tax value that accrues from one’s labor. Given this, it follows that taxes cannot be equated to theft.
I would say the ‘tax = theft’ folks are the ones playing word games here.
And I wouldn’t mind if you would respect the fact that a parent has the right to hand down all of his or her entire wealth to their children. The government deserves NONE OF IT!!
Abolish the death tax.
Nonsense!
John F. Kennedy, if he were alive today, would be a republican. That’s how far the democrat party has slid to the left.
There’s reality-based and then there’s envy based economics.
Children shouldn’t have their income taxed? That seems like a tough stance to justify.
Further, you guys are always railing against taxes because you contend that they dis-incentivize work. In this regard, the one form of income that can be taxed without dis-incentivizing its recipient from working is inherited wealth. So in this regard, it would seem like inherited income would be the sort you’d have the least objection to taxing.
And Reagan would be a Democrat. Crazy times, huh?
You obviously haven’t been following this discussion.
EARNED income sure. Inherited income–NO
Ha, sorry to disappoint you my friend. But Ronald Reagan would certainly NOT be a democrat in 2017.
Did you forget he sponsored the largest income tax reduction in history. Tell me what democrat, other than JFK, has ever reduced income taxes in a meaningful way?