welfare garantees that if you are unable to contribute to society, not because you dont want to work, but because you cannot at this moment (for a number of reasons: being handicaped, old, sick, no arms, etc) you shouldnt starve or live in misery.
in addition, surely you are not serious that private charity will reach every people in need! 50% of the world lives on less than 2 us dollars a day!
@diogotomediogo - In 50% of the world, $2 will buy you quite a great deal more than it will in the US. For that matter, more than 50%. Poverty worldwide is dropping, at a great rate. Lifespans are increasing.
Private charity will help those in dire need who cannot help themselves, once you remove those who have grown dependent on government. Poverty in the US was falling before the "Great Society", then it stopped falling. This is not a coincidence. This is not due to an increase in greed.
Finally, those who submit willingly to their governing state (e.g. correctly filing taxes, performing required military service etc.) can hardly define these payments as theft or extortion because of the freewill to leave or rebel against the state. However, those living under tyranny are another story entirely.
@victoryordeath420 - If they do not "submit willingly to their governing state", then that governing state will use force against them. The same is true of "required military service". These things in and of themselves are force. They are tyranny. It is the definition of extortion - obtaining money through coercion.
4. Under most current nations, citizens have the right to leave the state if they are dissatisfied. Of course governments have a history of taking much more than "enough to meet the costs average citizen's expectations" that extends beyond our oldest written records, but citizens (often) have the ability to leave and submit to another governing body or amass enough power to change the ruling body.
3. It's kind of irrelevant to argue whether or not taxes are redistribution of wealth.
In this case, it's more important to understand that a citizen living under a government has expectations (such as protect me, include me and ensure my standard of living); furthermore, it is important to understand that these privileges of the state come at a price (taxes, religious devotion, military service) which is dependent on the wants or needs of that nation.
(such as protect me, include me and ensure my standard of living)
Bull shit. Ensure me my standard of living? That is not a responsibility of goverment, and nor should it be an expectation. Do people honestly expect that they should recieve a standard of living from the government?
Government only role is protection. Protect rights and laws, so our FREE society can operate.
1. This man's favorite wine which he doesn't want taken away happens to be Lafite Rothschild -- A wine produced at Château Lafite Rothschild, which was originally owned by the son of the founder of the Rothschild banking empire. If you want to know who is really stealing your money, investigate the private banks of world-power governments.
2. Robin Hood supposedly stole from the state leaders and holders of any real money (those with enough to hold power) to redistribute it among the oppressed.
If any of these network types were smart, they would given Dr Williams his own show. The man is brilliant. I assume they fear he's a little dangerous and threatens the status Quo from which they all profit. In that case, they'd be right...
Brilliant as ever, however I do question whether it is a sin to recieve 'stolen property', as taxes pay for the road pavement but I wouldn't say I was sinning because I walked on it; similarly taxes pay for the army which defends me - I can't help but to not benefit from that as well.
@bobbis16 [taxes pay for the road pavement ...the army which defends me]
This is not a sin b/c these are not 'stolen property'. There is no redistribution of income. The closest you might get with your examples is the road to nowhere, Alaska. There you might say the residents of the island are receiving stolen privileges. Even then, those residents, if they could, would rather pocket the money (per capita) rather than building the road. That's gov't pork more than anything.
As long as we sit by and let a illegal alien communist muslim dictator destroy the country from with-in, and do nothing, the country will continue to decline. Whats going on in Wi. right now, is just the beginning of the trouble coming. We are bankrupt. Our dollar is close to collapsing, the gov. dont care, their future is assured, we will starve. I have the link to deport the illegal alien communist.
@nana66ist Thank you for demonstrating the phenomenal depth, intellect and maturity that makes up the greatest contrarian argumnet to Dr. Williams' position.
we dont teach those who disagree with us how we see things then how can we expect them to see the truth. as a young conservative our failure as a young conservative christian is the lack of education of how we see the world if they cant see then they cant walk the path. teach truth, carry a camera, record truth and teach it conservative ,Christians, jews and blacks all man I pray come together and talk we are headed a dark and sad time if we dont straighten our course agree or not we must talk
The concept Redistribution of Wealth is a false mental construct. The Lie, What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine? Government revenue belongs to the elected government NOT to the people who paid the tax. Arguably, it was NOT your money BEFORE you paid the tax, as it was an ABSOLUTE FINANCIAL OBLIGATION. SO please shut up about Redistribution of Wealth. There is NO SUCH ANIMAL. What's yours is yours. PAY your TAXES and VOTE. By the way, EXXON paid no taxes to our government.
@YentaY0 Redistribution of Wealth is real and the Government steals money to do it. Where do you think the money for Section 8, Welfare Checks, Food Stamps, TANF, SCHIP and every other Government handout comes from?
The reason Exxon paid no taxes, if that is the truth, we have yet to find out, is because the Rockefeller family controls it. It is a part of John D. Rockefellers' "Standard Oil." Do you know anything about the Rockefeller family and their grip on the United States?
@YentaY0 Wow! You're so smart! I can't believe I ever doubted you. Go play with your dolls, leave the Politics to the ADULTS. People like you have no knowledge of anything that matters, that is why you resort to name calling when you can't prove anything you say. I'm just waiting for you to call me a racist or a homophobe then my assumption will be proven correct.
Why so alarmed and distrustful? It's your constitution, too
Although suffering is acknowledged the proposed solution is perfect personal freedom, but the world isn't ready for perfect freedom. We don't have enough information individually. For instance, please choose a price for something you use. While you have insight into your own desire (demand side) you have very little into the costs and consequences of its production (supply side). Realistic sociological and ecological research, however
Why so alarmed and distrustful? It's your constitution, too
Although suffering is acknowledged the proposed solution is perfect personal freedom, but the world isn't ready for perfect freedom. We don't have enough information individually. For instance, please choose a price for something you use. While you have insight into your own desire (demand side) you have very little into the costs and consequences of its production (supply side). Realistic sociological and ecological research, however
The more someone says: "I am..I explained....I have been...I believe..I can...I cannot............" the less we should pay attention to the individ. Surely, our conclusion that megalomania is total mental decay is a self-evident truth.
There is no need to refer to the first person in any debate. It only weakens one's stance. We hear examples of this in sports-speak every day: "If I'm the Bozos, I'm cutting Schem-Gatten Dorf." It's quicker and more professional to say: "The Bozos should cut Schem-Gatten Dorf."
Starting in the 1970s, accentuated by Reaganomics & still in full force, is the steady flow of better paying blue collar + now some white, away from the U.S. Is it not amazing that in 2010, most jobs start at $7.00/hr? There has been a "redistribution" but it has been upward not downward. The propoganda from our Walters, our Ths. Sowells, the so-called conserves in the Media and Govt. is so pervasive, so effective as to amaze. The Dems, just as greedy, play champion of the bum. Good acting.
The problems with your theiry are legion. First of all, the jobs being outsourced are primarily manufacturing and service jobs (which, contrary to popular myth have BOTH been among the lowest paying for several decades). Second, outsourcing actually results in MORE and HIGHER PAYING jobs being INsourced into the US. And third, the notion that most jobs start at $7/hr is so contrary to reality, it's amazing anyone would assert it.
It is seen that Mr Fletcher is closely adhering to the party line as scripted by the Bush-Clinton/Limbaugh/Williams Cartel. These are individs who've carefully studied "1984," having mastered the nuances of the Big Lie. Of course, Doublethink, the most ingenious, sophisticated, psychological weapon in their arsenal, is always in play, as are simple Denial + Projection. The Dems are the enabling co-protagonists in this endless charade. The entire Huckster Machine is a thing of brilliance.
I need not follow any "party line". I've have been a research economist for 25 years and have taken the time and effort to do something you have apparently never considered: I looked up the actual facts. You've certainly demonstrated a willingness to believe the "Big Lie" that organized labor would like you to beliveve despite the readily available statistics that disprove it...
...though I must disagree on one point: the denial and projection you exhibit is not brilliance.
While I have been fairly described as a "borderline anarcho-capitalist", the best description is that I am a "minarchist" seeking the smallest possible government capable of preserving the freedoms of the individual citizens.
Oddly, I haven't explained this in months and this is twice today. :D
I am as yet unpersuaded that the risk that the perceived power vacuum that exists under an anarcho-capitalist society does not provide such an incentive to nation-states for external subjugation beyond the ability of such a society to prevent it that the risk to individual liberty is not ultimately greater than the inevitable growth of even the most restrained government.
Where's the power vacuum? The State is NOT an entity but is a phenomenon of coercion. Coercion will exist without the State. But the market will take care of profitable i.e. defensive coercion. There's no reason that an anarcho-capitalist society couldn't conquer the world if it was attacked given that the market for defence is part of anarchy. The difference is only scale. The State perverts law to incite violence by funding Mercantile interests outside of volitional contract
My concern, of course is liberty. While I can embrace anarcho-capitalism completely from a theoretical basis, I cannot discard my pragmatic concerns (particularly because pragmatism is such an obvious refutation of utopian socialism).
Mises regarded (as I do) economics as a science of human action that can inform but does not determine what "should" result. His economic arguments against socialism were in reference to its practical impossibility.
I understand. It makes sense that adjacent states will try to subjugate a free society. After all, it runs the risk of losing livestock to tax because of migration. But you know, the Swiss militia that held of the Nazis were composed entirely of voluntary applicants from ordinary citizens. The US lost the Vietnam war to self-organizing peasants. Just saying.
Economics can not teach what ought to be but what is. To preface the rest of my argument, I must say that the State is NOT the monopoly of coercion but the initiation of coercion gained suasion. Given the economic teachings of Mises regarding the State's divorce of income from assessed productivity, the State continuously misapplies coercion as you well know. The State Does Not Exist. There is always Anarchy. Is coercion defensive or offensive? Is propriety/society sustainable or unsustainable?
Well, suburb, we've been told this Uncle Milty Friedman was a genius but if that is the best he could do, oh Lordie! 'Yep, it's them bums what don't want to work what are f**kin' things up'. Really.
state-8: We became a trade deficit-nation in 1976. With the creation of the 1983 Caribbean Base Inititiave came off-shoring and a permanent climate of corporate closings and re-openings in the Third World. Interest rates remain very low (means nothing). Overproduction ala Gobalization is outstripping world population. See YouTube: singletree films (David McIvany).
Yes, corporate welfare, i.e. reduction in corp. taxes & de-regulation did "kill those jobs."
The point is our health care system is flawed and it needs to be corrected...Open your mind to the truth and stop acting like a puppet for the racist GOP...walter williams does that already...
Just because I proved that your point is total bullshit does not mean I'm a socialist...And my big dick has made many a woman happy so you can keep the gay fantasies for your pet goat...Bye Adolf...and do your home work...and thanks for realizing that I am smart...you did a fine job doing that...
Republicans elected their first black represantative roughly 60 years before the democrats did.
Who led the filibuster for the 1964 civil rights act? (Al Gore's father a democrat)
Granted you guys have the first black president but I think the democrats were more racist than the republicans. Oh and I forgot the most important piece of history. In the late 19th century the democrats presidential slogan was "It's a white mans country let white men rule."
By the way , whatever "nazi" meant years and years ago..if somebody calls you a nazi TODAY it ain't good...much like calling walter willaimns , thomas sowell etc uncle toms...Like many other words they can become "nicknames" to describe people or a group....got that Adolf...thus ending the lesson...sorry to be so stern with you but you asked for it...good luck in your days of researching the truth....
You are quite ignorant on racism my friend. You don't even know my race and you are so quick to denounce Williams and Sowell for going against the grain since 90% of black voted for Obama.
What president fought to end slavery? -Lincoln(Republican)
First party to nominate a black VP - Republicans in 1872 with Frederick Douglass
Only party to have a former klansman as a current member of the senate (democrat Robert Byrd).
Please give the GOP "we love the knee-grow" song a rest..RIGHT NOW and for the past 40 the GOP has been the more racist party..Nixon and his southern stategy , reagan, mccain, bush, cheney and their support for aparthied, reagan for his supprt of housing discrimination, bush for his two stolen elections, bush again for his horrible acts during katrina, bush's mother for her racist remark during katrina, palin for her kkk style rallies...let's deal with today or is that too much
"However, In 1929, Hitler called socialism 'an unfortunate word altogether'. According to Henry A. Turner, Hitler expressed regret for having integrated the word socialism into his party's name. Hitler wrote in 1930, 'Our adopted term 'Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not.'"
@ BenkaiDebussy - look at what he did not what he said. I don't believe the words that politicians say I look at their actions. He socialized VW and the banks. How is that not socialism?
Like I was mentioning in the other reply, it is socialism, but so are many of the things we do here in the US. Our military is socialized, our education is socialized, and certain industries like agriculture and airplane manufacturing are heavily subsidized. It does not make sense to say a certain nation is "Socialist" or "Capitalist." Certain industries can be more or less socialist, and this is true of any country. Certain industries also clearly benefit from socialism, while others do not.
And the public schools produce such scholars don't they. I wonder why people pay for both public and private schools instead of just paying for the public. Military is certainly a tough one. I don't think that blackwater could run our military but then again that is provided for in our Constitution. Healthcare is not and do not say it is in the general welfare clause because then you would just be ignorant.
While it's true that ALL economies are hybrids containing both elements of capitalism and socialism, it is incorrect to refer to the military (or police) as "socialist" as they are the exercise of powers inherent in government and not interventions in the economy. Further, fascism is not merely somewhat socialist, but is, in fact, by definition socialist in its application as all powers of ownership are exercised by govt (even though title ostensibly remains in private hands).
Hitler (like Obama) shunned the word "socialist" - but that is not evidence of anything. Even the original fascists in Italy stated explicitly that part of the doctrine involved the elimination of private property and no one would argue that the Nazis did not subsume the rights of the individual (including property rights) to the collective (state). That the Nazis WERE socialist has been recognized by political scientists and economists for decades - sorry you didn;t get the memo.
The "agents of accumulation" vs the "agents of redistribution" is the timeless tale of sophistry. The problem is the agents of accumulation are the original "recipients of stolen property." Today's U.S. (Gas) Chamber of Commerce & National Association of Manufacturers are part of the open borders crowd along with the RCC, ACLU, SPLC, NAACP, NOI, New Black Panthers, CAIR, MALDEF, ADL, La Raza & many others. These are "agents of anarchy" aka mass murderers. Put Walter E. William there, too.
Actually, Dr. Williams (and I) agree pretty much with Milton Friedman on the issue of open borders - that the idea is incompatible with the xistence of a Welfare state. Had you a grasp of realioty, you would know that any influx of productive individuals results in MORE and HIGHER PAYING jobs in this country - production begets production (and opportunity). It is those that wish to suck at the public teat that are the problem.
We've exposed Dr. Walter E. William for the quackery which characterizes the good doctor's essential nature. Any further discussion with these faux-freedomites is not necessary.
Wow. With such deep commentary as "immigration is treason" and "treason is cyanide", how can anyone possible question the divinely inspired intellect behind such awe-inspiring wit?
All you've "exposed" are your own glaring shortcomings.
Didn't Bush and reagan "steal" money when they give huge tax cuts to the very rich and created more homeless people in history ( Reagan) and ruined our economy ( Bush)...by the way , this uncle tom praised slavery so he should be stepped on like a roach...
you must be dumb as dirt. a tax cut doesn't give anybody anything. it just takes doesn't TAKE as much from them. you are even a bigger idiot to think Sowell praises slavery. Try reading any of this 50+ books. You just want to live like a dependent child--at someone else expense. Your kind are the REAL roaches of humanity---looking to take instead of producing your own. You are big-time ghetto to think that it is the rich who are doing the stealing. They simply produce wealth.
So if your mortgage company tells you that your payment will be cut by 20% do you gain anything...???...you are a fucking idiot..And Sowell did defend slavery , just as clarence thomas, walter williams and jesse peterson did...all useless uncle toms that should be stepped on like a roach....And how would you know what the rich do with their money....you ain't rich....asshole...
to freein2339 - You obviously have no clue about economics. If Bush, Reagan or anyone else cut taxes for the rich and for corporations that did not put anyone on the streets. In fact it probably took more people off the streets. If you give more money back to small businesses and corporations (it actually starts out as their money anyways) then they will have more of an incentive for capital investment to grow their business and thus jobs are created.
The tax cuts DID NOT WORK...That's why Bush Sr called it "voodoo economics"...And under the reagan administration more people became homeless then under any other administration look it up..And companies only create jobs when their product or service is in greater demand..Tax cuts do not do that...that's common sense..
Tax cuts free up capital that allow businesses to expand and produce jobs. And, gee, you may love old man Bush, but his statement about voodoo economics was in the primary before Reagan was elected. The economic recovery launched by those Reagan tax cuts was the longest in U.S. history. It made all of the papers. Even CNN is not in denial about this. What kind of shit are government schools teaching these days to produce morons like you?
The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before — and the poverty rate had actually risen.
Clinton turned the floundering economy around. Even the Bush administration's own Council of Economic Advisers dates the beginning of the economic boom to 1995, during Clinton's first term.
Yet, Republicans anxious to take credit for this resurgence will tell you ad nauseam that it was Reagan's 1981 tax cut that fueled these positive economic developments 14 years later.
i think this is an unproductive expenditure of time, but would you please explain what Clinton did to turn the economy around. Please provide some, any, rationale for this absurd conclusion. Clinton simply benefited from the dynamics in reduced military spending made possible when Reagan forced the Soviet Union into collapse. But please, you tell me the actions that Clinton took. NAFTA?
In February 2000, the United States entered the 107th consecutive month of economic expansion -- the longest economic expansion in history.
22.2 million new jobs have been created since 1993, the most jobs ever created under a single Administration -- and more new jobs than Presidents Reagan and Bush created during their three terms. 91 percent (19.9 million) of the new jobs have been created in the private sector, the highest percentage in 50 years.
Unemployment is down from 7.5 percent in 1992 to 4.0 percent in June 2000, and in April the unemployment rate was the lowest in over 30 years. The unemployment rate has fallen for seven years in a row, and has remained below 5 percent for 34 months in a row.
The poverty rate has fallen from 15.1 percent in 1993 to 12.7 percent in 1998. Thats the lowest poverty rate since 1979 and the largest five-year drop in poverty in nearly 30 years
They have repeated this economic lie so often that they seem to believe it themselves, even as we are again experiencing the economic nightmare of Reaganomics from the Bush White House and Congress.... cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations and forget about balancing the budget.
Wow, even Obama (the biggest spender in US history) is having trouble trying to continue blaming Bush a year after he took over. You are glow-in-the-dark pathetic to try and pin it on RR.
First of all don't call me stupid. That is no way to sway somebody to believe you.
I understand all of the statistics that you are citing and will take you at your word on that. Your fundamental flaw is that you assume that since something happened under Clinton then it is because he did something. I would say that look at the 10+ years after a policy had been enacted to understand its effects.
Look at what Reagan inherited when he took office. Now that was much worse than what Obama inherited and he never once bitched about it. His tax cuts are responsibly for the 20+ years of growth that occurred after them. I don't know what school of thought you come from but raising taxes promotes only one kind of growth and that is government growth which is also the only kind of growth that doesn't actually contribute to the growth of GDP.
In order to understand all of this you must also look at many the other forces out there like what forced Reagan to triple the national debt. Well for better or for worse we were in the cold war. If you don't like tripling the national debt then i hope you don't approve of Obama's policies. Reagan's spending wasn't even close to what Obama's will be and his was so we wouldn't get a nuke up our ass not so we could pay for your healthcare.
Pay for my healthcare..??? Typical racist redneck response...your true colors finally came out...took long enough..The fact is Adolf our country pays more for health care then most industrilized countries and we receive less...Taiwan has better healthcare then we do and guess what..??? Most other countries do not have their citizens going bankrupt from health care costs..Maybe these other countries actually CARE about their citizens...something conservatives have yet to learn....
Wow so you know nothing about me at all yet you call me a racist redneck and Adolf Hitler. Someone's stance on healthcare has nothing to do with race buddy and as for Hitler I bet you don't even know what NAZI stands for. If you can tell me what NAZI stands for I will continue this discussion. If not I have no use for you or any of you minions out there. And by the way we have the best health care system in the world and over 85% of medical inventions come from the US.
The American health care system puts patients at greater risk of harm from medical or surgical errors than patients elsewhere and ranks behind the top countries in extending the lives of the elderly. It has a mixed record on preventive care — above average in vaccinating seniors against the flu, below average in vaccinating children — and a mixed record of caring for chronic and acute conditions.
Do the tens of millions of Americans with no coverage agree with that? How about the Americans who've had to declare bankruptcy because they couldn't afford their health care bills? Or the workers who've seen their premiums quadruple? Or the families who wait in long lines for care? Or the businesses who struggle to compete because of health care costs?
There are countries that don't have this problem...do your homework Adolf...
First, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), France has the best health care system in the world . It has been widely reported that the WHO found the French system to be number 1 while the Canadian system is number 30 and the U.S. number 37.
I'm sorry but I should call you what you are...a stupid nazi...
Maybe you should see how the WHO comes up with their rankings. One of their major issues is access. In most countries that have socialized health insurance everyone has access but that doesn't help someone who has to wait in line for 6+ months for a surgery and they die while in line. the WHO doesn't account for that.
DO YOUR RESEARCH! Until you can tell me what the word NAZI is short for shut your mouth.
In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.
Get your head out of your ass Adolf...and do your homework stupid....
As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries...
Damn Adolf this is too easy..I've have to use my other foot in put in your ass now...lol
On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.
The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.
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since you have a little dick you might want to take notes
If Canada is so great why did a canadian ambulance in Ontario drive a 49 year old union guy to Detroit when he was having a heart attack. It is pretty sad they were stopped for extra screening. At leas you know what Nazi meant and yes they were socialists. Hitler socialized VW and all of the banks among other things.
Did you even read the quotes I gave you? The Nazi party may have done a couple socialist things, but Hitler himself did not harbor any good will towards Marxism. The US is also partly socialist (public education, roads, police, etc).
Many Americans also travel to Canada for care. That is an anecdote, however, and does not change the fact that quality of care in Canada is measurably equal to or better than ours. Search "health care comparison US Canada" on Wikipedia for a bunch of info.
Milton Friedman said it best, "We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork." That is the problem with where we are now. We reward the nonproductive and penalize the productive.
While it is true that some Americans travel to Canda for (fee for service) care, it is a trickle in comparison to the numberws of Canadians who come to the US because they cannot afford to wait for "free" (rationed) care.
In actual fact, every reputable study demonstrates that ACTUAL CARE is far superior in the US than in Canada (as even the Wikipedia article demonstrates). Only studies that include things unreated to care ($, life expectancy, infant mortality, etc.) place the US lower.
According to Health Canada's official statistics, some 170 Ontarians (just one province) die every year waiting for "elective" heart surgery - some because they die outright; some because they become too ill to survive the surgery. Tell THEM that "dying while waiting 6 months" is "pure fantasy".
As for health insurance increasing you should ask yourself why that happened. It doesn't just happen on its own. In 1980 there were roughly 160 regulations on insurance and now there are a
U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration.
The economy that Reagan inherited was no where near as bad as the one Obama inherited...Obama is dealing with a worldwide economic crisis..Reagan bascially had to deal with inflation and unemployment...But Reagan's policies did not work ..case in point the large number of homeless people created under the reagan administration...look that up as well...do some research ....
If you don't like being called stupid ...don't tell peple they have no clue about economics especially after they state facts and use common sense...reagan was a raicist and a thief and he economic policies while they may have hurt Russian also hurt our country...And who benefitted from that...??? Rich people
Its called ending all the tax breaks and other benefits like out sourceing American jobs and cracking down on rich , greedy people who would other wise "capitalize" on the people. Out source to avoid tax and to pay lower wages and still get tax breaks as an American company has to end. So yea your damn right re-distribute and have the rich pay more tax and allow the little guy a chance to get ahead it wont hurt the rich....There already rich!! The little guy made you ,give some back , greedy ass
I would also argue that these entitlements are for individual gain. They enable a congressman to get elected and gain power. After all if someone running for election under the slogan of "I'll raise your taxes by 50% for your own good." They would be laughed off the stage. If 30% of your income is good for the country, why wouldn't 80% be great? Where does it end?
It ends with economic analysis and the political will of the populace. There is no innate correlation between tax amount and good achieved, so the 30%->80% argument makes no sense. And all politicians act out of self-interest. If that in itself disqualified taxation or distribution of taxes, then it's all bad, and the Constitution needs to be rewritten. No public support of roads, military, etc.
The point I was making was the irony of congress and if we can envision a limit, not that we should pay no taxes. I'm not proposing anarchy. Spending is the problem. The government can transfer private wealth without taxes. Such as deficit spending and printing more money are other ways.
Ultimately the government gets all of its money through taxation. It pays back bond holders with those taxes. Taxes and bonds (more taxes) fund deficit spending.
It sounds like you oppose particular uses of tax money, not the actual taking of taxes. In the video Williams equates that taking with theft. I don't always like how my tax money is used, but I think Williams' argument is baloney served up on a poppy-cock bun lightly sprinkled with balderdash.
However, you could argue that if Williams refuses to pay taxes, he is committing theft. Citizenship can be given freely, but our country (and no country I know of) does so. This would be analagous to a corporation charging for the product it produces. Membership has its benefits and its price. In the case of USA citizenship, the price and benefits have been set by the Constitution and continuing legislation produced by elected officials.
If a citizen refuses to pay membership dues, penalties may be applied. If a citizen no longer wishes to honor the contract, s/he may renounce citizenship ...and all the benefits that come with it.
Williams seems to want something for nothing. And that's nothing new.
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If a store owner refuses to pay membership dues to the mafia, penalties may be applied. If he no longer wishes to honor the contract, s/he may renounce protection ...and all the benefits that come with it.
Are you unhappy that citizens are born such, that you feel powerless to set terms of citizenship, or that the government isn't using enforcers to stick your head in a vice when you break the contract or try to renounce it?
I don't think the USA guvment will break your knees if you choose to become a citizen of Darfur. I'd have suggested Myanmar, but they don't take just anyone.
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My point is simply that your whole argument is circular.
You defend the government's taking of people's money by force, on the basis that it is done "legally". But legality is determined by the government. So in truth, they are no different from the mob.
I'm not particular about the form of punishment they inflict, but I suppose I'd prefer having my head in a vice to being put in a cage for ten years.
foolcow1976: The circularities involved in legality and morality are not my invention.
'Legality' in the USA is also determined by you, the citizen. This is quite different from arrangements with mobsters. The issue of legality comes into defining theft (illegal taking). Whether or not what is legal is actually morally appropriate is altogether another matter. That is something many here seem to confuse. The video is also very confused on issues of morality.
@coltrane1966: How is it immoral to require those who essentially own the system and are the primary beneficiaries of the system to provide for its maintenance? We are talking about systemic problems here, not simply taking to enrich yourself as an individual.
@coltrane1966: It sounds like you are trying to push me into the false dilemma of saying we are either ants or sharks. But we are neither. We are individuals living within a collective, and the interests of both have to be balanced.
@LordOfMictlan I'm only trying to establish your actual premise.
I see you actually do hold those premises but you also see the immorality of those premises, unfortunately you still come to the same conclusion because of your ignorance of Economics, History, Politics and Morality.
Your other replies to the 4 points clearly demonstrate this, as you answer with a negative and then justify that very premise anyway with fallacies.
1) To some degree the society does have that power. As it oversteps what individuals collectively feel are its rights to impose responsibilities, it puts itself in increasing jeopardy. Are you suggesting that some of the wealthy might not want to pitch in with other wealthy to shoulder the burden of maintaining a stable society and economy? Freeloading?
2) No. But man makes sacrifices to pay for the benefits that society brings. It's called cost.
3) No. But man needs the collective. The wealthy would not be such without it.
4) Not sure what your point is. But transactions are usually a mix of costs and benefits. Again, asking those who benefit most from society to pay more for it doesn't seem immoral, and it definitely has not been legislated into a crime.
My point about Darfur is that you can reject your contract with the USA government and and sign up for the one offered by the government of Darfur. Maybe you will find terms more to your liking(?).
To argue that a form of taking is theft because it is immoral according to an ancient legal system that actually proclaims such taking as legal and moral is beyond circular. It's ignorant and ridiculous. Williams should be sufficiently informed to distinguish legality/morality and to actually know something about Jewish Law if he is going to base his argument on it.
If anyone here wants to claim that a particular form of taxation SHOULD be illegal because it is immoral, argue the morality.
Although I don't know your status, I suspect your parents signed for you by popping you out in the USA. If your beef is membership criteria for natives, that's really another matter. Maybe you could promote a constitutional amendment limiting citizenship to willing adults 18 and older. The rest get no benefits and probably have to move somewhere else.
The perceived double standard is really an oversimplification. We haven't given our neighbor any constitutional power to come into our house and take our wealth.
You are making my point for me. You, as my neighbor have no constitutional power to come into my house and take my wealth, yet it's taken. Theft is still illegal, is it not? So am I to assume that the term "general welfare" in the constitution means anything you want that you don't have. I think not. None of the 16 enumerated powers mentions using tax revenue for social security. So why is it legal for congress to spend money on this? And this is only one of many.
I'm not making your point for you. The government has many constitutional powers that your neighbor does not have. The government is not your neighbor. End of story and inapt analogy. And if you think 'general welfare' has some specific meaning contrary to the activities in question, you are free to lobby for an ammendment that clarifies it or to create a test case for the Supreme Court. All are within your powers as a citizen.
I think what Dr. Williams is trying to say regardless of moral values, or constitutional law is that we see a double standard. If I came to your house, took your checkbook, and wrote checks out to myself I would be guilty of fraud and theft. Even if I did something so noble as to write a check out to the US Treasury, I'm sure I would still be guilty. Congress gets a free pass because they create legislative entitlements that do the same, and call it "common good."
There is a case to be made that we all benefit from Welfare, an argument beyond insuring ourselves from our own failures. It is unavoidable that there will be a bottom of the system, and people at the bottom cost us all no matter how we decide to pay for it. And when wealth inequality becomes too extreme, it brings on the danger of revolt, a costly problem at best. At worst you may lose your capitalist system. It pays to feed the golden goose and build the community you live in.
Williams claims to base his morality on Jewish law. That same law fully and repeatedly contradicts his claim. Christian morality also rejects his claim. If he wants to appeal to some other system of morality, or if he wants to make an independent moral case for his equation, he will need to put out another video.
So taking by force is OK if the constitution says so, but not OK if it is subsequently legislated? What if the constitution mandated communism? What determines 'rightful' property? Again, you are misusing the term theft. It is sufficient to claim that the act is immoral or morally equivalent to theft. But it is another thing altogether to defend that claim.
Taking by force is not OK by the Constitution. The authority of the federal government is limited and enumerated. That design was essential to the concept of individual liberty. Sadly, Congress routinely exceeds their proper authority when they legislate theft (redistribute income) or take other actions beyond their charge. Citizens, many wanting to be taken care of like children, have voted to hand over liberty in return for what is seen as benign conservatorship. Theft is now a virtue.
Legislated theft is a contradiction in terms. Are you saying that it is not OK for the government to force its citizens to pay any taxes? Earlier it sounded like you approved of taxation to support 'constitutional' services. That would be a taking by force.
And, FYI, the constitution explicitly gives congress the power to collect taxes for the general welfare of the USA:
"Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"
LibertyPen, I notice your profile says you have worked in Social Services for over 30 years. That means that my rightful property has been 'stolen' and given to you, correct? Would you like to issue an apology for your knowing participation in a 'crime?' If you would like to compensate the USA for your 30 years of salary and government benefits, I'd be glad to give you my address. Do you have any plans to quit your job in protest?
Williams' equation of taxation with theft is definitionally wrong, morally simplistic, and a little embarrassing coming from a professor. And I doubt we'd have much of a military, road system, or education system by ringing a bell in front of your local WalMart or mailing out optional tax forms. There may, however, be private means of providing some of these services. Toll roads would be an example.
Dr. Williams makes no case against taxation as a means to fund federal services authorized by the Constitution. However, when the rightful property of one citizen is taken by force to simply be given to another citizen (as with welfare), it is theft, pure and simple. Using a politician rather than a gun does not change the morality of the action; it is simply legalizes it. This is one illustration how there is no inherent relationship between morality and legality.
The bigger question is whether or not taxation is a moral form of 'taking.' Is it moral for the government to require its citizens to contribute to the maintenance of common property and goals? A different question is whether or not it is moral for the government to do so while offering little-to-no control of the size or use of that contribution by its citizens. Big questions, difficult answers.
I think some of the confusion in this conversation is the labeling of taxation as theft. Like murder, theft is an illegal form of an act that may not always be illegal, or even wrong. Taxation is legal and by definition not theft.
Is theft then justified so long as the majority of your fellow citizens vote for the people committing the theft? I don't dispute the need for taxation. It is a necessary evil that I agree to subject myself to in order for the government to perform their Constitutional functions. Yet the government continually exceeds its authority all the while forcing me to pay for its illegal excesses. I see no justification because my fellow citizen is complicit. It doesn't work for a riot or for theft.
Using a politician, rather than a gun, to take the rightful property of someone else is an act of theft. It is just legal theft. But, from a moral point of view, the actions are essentially identical. I believe, as did Frederick Bastiat, that what is immoral for individuals to do is also immoral for governments to do. Therein lies Dr. Williams' point.
I disagree. People cede certain of their liberties to government in exchange for protection of their rights and persons (the Social Contract). If the government spends your money doing anything else (which unfortunately is about 90% of spending nowadays), THEN it is reprehensible. But taxation in and of itself is not immoral any more than having a military or law enforcement is.
Rightful property? You mean like access to a highly developed economy, the technological advancements of a society, a nice law system, a military, a police force, roads, waterways, protection in foreign lands, etc? Or do you mean the wealth that is produced on top of those common goods?
Even the right to property is a thing given by society. In the absence of society, your property is only yours if you can fend off those who would take it by force, just like the rest of the animals on earth.
There are costs to living in a society. There might be better, more proportionate means of dealing with those costs, but the costs are not theft. You can always reject citizenship and wander where you will. But wandering space is shrinking in this crowded world.
In some cases taxation may be perceived as unfair in that not all taxpayers receive the value they think they deserve. But that does not mean taxation is theft.
Whether or not the market can take care of community needs is of huge importance. But, you are right, it has no bearing on whether or not taxation is theft.
Actually, Exodus 22:2 proves my point. That is an example of manslaughter, not murder. There are many instances of killing in the Bible that are not murder.
And whatever you want to call it, it is obvious that the Mosaic Law not only legitimizes taxation, it requires it. And if you believe God is the source of those laws, you have to admit that God required it too. It's very funny hearing Williams base his argument on a set of laws that requires the very thing he wants to condemn.
a thief steals money for himself
government redistributes money to the poor!
welfare garantees that if you are unable to contribute to society, not because you dont want to work, but because you cannot at this moment (for a number of reasons: being handicaped, old, sick, no arms, etc) you shouldnt starve or live in misery.
in addition, surely you are not serious that private charity will reach every people in need! 50% of the world lives on less than 2 us dollars a day!
diogotomediogo 4 months ago in playlist Mais vídeos de LibertyPen
@diogotomediogo - In 50% of the world, $2 will buy you quite a great deal more than it will in the US. For that matter, more than 50%. Poverty worldwide is dropping, at a great rate. Lifespans are increasing.
Private charity will help those in dire need who cannot help themselves, once you remove those who have grown dependent on government. Poverty in the US was falling before the "Great Society", then it stopped falling. This is not a coincidence. This is not due to an increase in greed.
mpc91 3 months ago
I just wonder what that means considering the bail-outs?
RzzRBladez 6 months ago
Finally, those who submit willingly to their governing state (e.g. correctly filing taxes, performing required military service etc.) can hardly define these payments as theft or extortion because of the freewill to leave or rebel against the state. However, those living under tyranny are another story entirely.
victoryordeath420 8 months ago
@victoryordeath420 - If they do not "submit willingly to their governing state", then that governing state will use force against them. The same is true of "required military service". These things in and of themselves are force. They are tyranny. It is the definition of extortion - obtaining money through coercion.
mpc91 3 months ago
4. Under most current nations, citizens have the right to leave the state if they are dissatisfied. Of course governments have a history of taking much more than "enough to meet the costs average citizen's expectations" that extends beyond our oldest written records, but citizens (often) have the ability to leave and submit to another governing body or amass enough power to change the ruling body.
victoryordeath420 8 months ago
3. It's kind of irrelevant to argue whether or not taxes are redistribution of wealth.
In this case, it's more important to understand that a citizen living under a government has expectations (such as protect me, include me and ensure my standard of living); furthermore, it is important to understand that these privileges of the state come at a price (taxes, religious devotion, military service) which is dependent on the wants or needs of that nation.
victoryordeath420 8 months ago
@victoryordeath420
(such as protect me, include me and ensure my standard of living)
Bull shit. Ensure me my standard of living? That is not a responsibility of goverment, and nor should it be an expectation. Do people honestly expect that they should recieve a standard of living from the government?
Government only role is protection. Protect rights and laws, so our FREE society can operate.
OnlyTheWeakNeedHelp 6 months ago 2
1. This man's favorite wine which he doesn't want taken away happens to be Lafite Rothschild -- A wine produced at Château Lafite Rothschild, which was originally owned by the son of the founder of the Rothschild banking empire. If you want to know who is really stealing your money, investigate the private banks of world-power governments.
2. Robin Hood supposedly stole from the state leaders and holders of any real money (those with enough to hold power) to redistribute it among the oppressed.
victoryordeath420 8 months ago
If any of these network types were smart, they would given Dr Williams his own show. The man is brilliant. I assume they fear he's a little dangerous and threatens the status Quo from which they all profit. In that case, they'd be right...
jamo387 8 months ago
Brilliant as ever, however I do question whether it is a sin to recieve 'stolen property', as taxes pay for the road pavement but I wouldn't say I was sinning because I walked on it; similarly taxes pay for the army which defends me - I can't help but to not benefit from that as well.
bobbis16 1 year ago
@bobbis16 [taxes pay for the road pavement ...the army which defends me]
This is not a sin b/c these are not 'stolen property'. There is no redistribution of income. The closest you might get with your examples is the road to nowhere, Alaska. There you might say the residents of the island are receiving stolen privileges. Even then, those residents, if they could, would rather pocket the money (per capita) rather than building the road. That's gov't pork more than anything.
danL1011 9 months ago
We need this man in the White House!
dbraz45 1 year ago
As long as we sit by and let a illegal alien communist muslim dictator destroy the country from with-in, and do nothing, the country will continue to decline. Whats going on in Wi. right now, is just the beginning of the trouble coming. We are bankrupt. Our dollar is close to collapsing, the gov. dont care, their future is assured, we will starve. I have the link to deport the illegal alien communist.
fckobango 1 year ago
W W for President!!
whowouldofthunkit1 1 year ago
'compassionate' theft...
Baskerville22 1 year ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
total bull shit
nana66ist 1 year ago
@nana66ist Thank you for demonstrating the phenomenal depth, intellect and maturity that makes up the greatest contrarian argumnet to Dr. Williams' position.
Bravo!
FletchforFreedom 1 year ago 3
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nana66ist 1 year ago
we dont teach those who disagree with us how we see things then how can we expect them to see the truth. as a young conservative our failure as a young conservative christian is the lack of education of how we see the world if they cant see then they cant walk the path. teach truth, carry a camera, record truth and teach it conservative ,Christians, jews and blacks all man I pray come together and talk we are headed a dark and sad time if we dont straighten our course agree or not we must talk
Illumified 1 year ago
I can only listen to the Rush Limbaugh show when Dr. Walter E. Williams is filling in!
America needs Dr.Williams to have his own daily show.
Platewarp 1 year ago 22
Two wolves and one sheep, indeed.
steampunk18 1 year ago
The concept Redistribution of Wealth is a false mental construct. The Lie, What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine? Government revenue belongs to the elected government NOT to the people who paid the tax. Arguably, it was NOT your money BEFORE you paid the tax, as it was an ABSOLUTE FINANCIAL OBLIGATION. SO please shut up about Redistribution of Wealth. There is NO SUCH ANIMAL. What's yours is yours. PAY your TAXES and VOTE. By the way, EXXON paid no taxes to our government.
YentaY0 1 year ago
@YentaY0 Redistribution of Wealth is real and the Government steals money to do it. Where do you think the money for Section 8, Welfare Checks, Food Stamps, TANF, SCHIP and every other Government handout comes from?
The reason Exxon paid no taxes, if that is the truth, we have yet to find out, is because the Rockefeller family controls it. It is a part of John D. Rockefellers' "Standard Oil." Do you know anything about the Rockefeller family and their grip on the United States?
TwiztedAnimator 1 year ago 4
@TwiztedAnimator Q. What another name for a twisted animation? Ans. A Looney Tune! har
YentaY0 1 year ago
@YentaY0 Wow! You're so smart! I can't believe I ever doubted you. Go play with your dolls, leave the Politics to the ADULTS. People like you have no knowledge of anything that matters, that is why you resort to name calling when you can't prove anything you say. I'm just waiting for you to call me a racist or a homophobe then my assumption will be proven correct.
TwiztedAnimator 1 year ago
Why so alarmed and distrustful? It's your constitution, too
Although suffering is acknowledged the proposed solution is perfect personal freedom, but the world isn't ready for perfect freedom. We don't have enough information individually. For instance, please choose a price for something you use. While you have insight into your own desire (demand side) you have very little into the costs and consequences of its production (supply side). Realistic sociological and ecological research, however
PeachRobbler 1 year ago
Why so alarmed and distrustful? It's your constitution, too
Although suffering is acknowledged the proposed solution is perfect personal freedom, but the world isn't ready for perfect freedom. We don't have enough information individually. For instance, please choose a price for something you use. While you have insight into your own desire (demand side) you have very little into the costs and consequences of its production (supply side). Realistic sociological and ecological research, however
PeachRobbler 1 year ago
Distribution would have to already be just
for redistribution to be wrong
PeachRobbler 1 year ago
The more someone says: "I am..I explained....I have been...I believe..I can...I cannot............" the less we should pay attention to the individ. Surely, our conclusion that megalomania is total mental decay is a self-evident truth.
lumpagogo 2 years ago
@lumpagogo I am not arguing with you when saying this, but what should someone say in terms of vocabulary?
Wrong: "I am..I explained....I have been...I believe..I can...I cannot............"
Right: ?
EmperorProzen 1 year ago
@EmperorProzen
There is no need to refer to the first person in any debate. It only weakens one's stance. We hear examples of this in sports-speak every day: "If I'm the Bozos, I'm cutting Schem-Gatten Dorf." It's quicker and more professional to say: "The Bozos should cut Schem-Gatten Dorf."
lumpagogo 1 year ago
Williams is a genious
stater68 2 years ago
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lumpagogo 2 years ago
Starting in the 1970s, accentuated by Reaganomics & still in full force, is the steady flow of better paying blue collar + now some white, away from the U.S. Is it not amazing that in 2010, most jobs start at $7.00/hr? There has been a "redistribution" but it has been upward not downward. The propoganda from our Walters, our Ths. Sowells, the so-called conserves in the Media and Govt. is so pervasive, so effective as to amaze. The Dems, just as greedy, play champion of the bum. Good acting.
lumpagogo 2 years ago 2
The problems with your theiry are legion. First of all, the jobs being outsourced are primarily manufacturing and service jobs (which, contrary to popular myth have BOTH been among the lowest paying for several decades). Second, outsourcing actually results in MORE and HIGHER PAYING jobs being INsourced into the US. And third, the notion that most jobs start at $7/hr is so contrary to reality, it's amazing anyone would assert it.
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
It is seen that Mr Fletcher is closely adhering to the party line as scripted by the Bush-Clinton/Limbaugh/Williams Cartel. These are individs who've carefully studied "1984," having mastered the nuances of the Big Lie. Of course, Doublethink, the most ingenious, sophisticated, psychological weapon in their arsenal, is always in play, as are simple Denial + Projection. The Dems are the enabling co-protagonists in this endless charade. The entire Huckster Machine is a thing of brilliance.
lumpagogo 2 years ago
I need not follow any "party line". I've have been a research economist for 25 years and have taken the time and effort to do something you have apparently never considered: I looked up the actual facts. You've certainly demonstrated a willingness to believe the "Big Lie" that organized labor would like you to beliveve despite the readily available statistics that disprove it...
...though I must disagree on one point: the denial and projection you exhibit is not brilliance.
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
@FletchforFreedom Fletch, are you an anarchist? Just curious.
truevoice08 2 years ago
While I have been fairly described as a "borderline anarcho-capitalist", the best description is that I am a "minarchist" seeking the smallest possible government capable of preserving the freedoms of the individual citizens.
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
@FletchforFreedom What is keeping you from making the final step? If I may ask.
I believe von Mises remained a minarchist because of some technicality relating to his economics being value-free.
truevoice08 2 years ago
Oddly, I haven't explained this in months and this is twice today. :D
I am as yet unpersuaded that the risk that the perceived power vacuum that exists under an anarcho-capitalist society does not provide such an incentive to nation-states for external subjugation beyond the ability of such a society to prevent it that the risk to individual liberty is not ultimately greater than the inevitable growth of even the most restrained government.
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
@FletchforFreedom
Where's the power vacuum? The State is NOT an entity but is a phenomenon of coercion. Coercion will exist without the State. But the market will take care of profitable i.e. defensive coercion. There's no reason that an anarcho-capitalist society couldn't conquer the world if it was attacked given that the market for defence is part of anarchy. The difference is only scale. The State perverts law to incite violence by funding Mercantile interests outside of volitional contract
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
My concern, of course is liberty. While I can embrace anarcho-capitalism completely from a theoretical basis, I cannot discard my pragmatic concerns (particularly because pragmatism is such an obvious refutation of utopian socialism).
Mises regarded (as I do) economics as a science of human action that can inform but does not determine what "should" result. His economic arguments against socialism were in reference to its practical impossibility.
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
I understand. It makes sense that adjacent states will try to subjugate a free society. After all, it runs the risk of losing livestock to tax because of migration. But you know, the Swiss militia that held of the Nazis were composed entirely of voluntary applicants from ordinary citizens. The US lost the Vietnam war to self-organizing peasants. Just saying.
truevoice08 2 years ago
Economics can not teach what ought to be but what is. To preface the rest of my argument, I must say that the State is NOT the monopoly of coercion but the initiation of coercion gained suasion. Given the economic teachings of Mises regarding the State's divorce of income from assessed productivity, the State continuously misapplies coercion as you well know. The State Does Not Exist. There is always Anarchy. Is coercion defensive or offensive? Is propriety/society sustainable or unsustainable?
Nintendomanwill 1 year ago
you are seriously an idiot if you believe the words comming from your mouth.
Thill029 2 years ago
The Thrill on the Hill does not fulfill.
lumpagogo 2 years ago
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Well, suburb, we've been told this Uncle Milty Friedman was a genius but if that is the best he could do, oh Lordie! 'Yep, it's them bums what don't want to work what are f**kin' things up'. Really.
lumpagogo 2 years ago
You people demonize capitalism for the problems caused by government. Monetary policy, taxes, and regulation killed those jobs.
stater68 2 years ago
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lumpagogo 2 years ago
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state-8: We became a trade deficit-nation in 1976. With the creation of the 1983 Caribbean Base Inititiave came off-shoring and a permanent climate of corporate closings and re-openings in the Third World. Interest rates remain very low (means nothing). Overproduction ala Gobalization is outstripping world population. See YouTube: singletree films (David McIvany).
Yes, corporate welfare, i.e. reduction in corp. taxes & de-regulation did "kill those jobs."
lumpagogo 2 years ago
@surfvb
The point is our health care system is flawed and it needs to be corrected...Open your mind to the truth and stop acting like a puppet for the racist GOP...walter williams does that already...
freein2339 2 years ago
If you are so fucking smart tell me what nazi stands for you socialist faggot.
surfrvb101 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
Just because I proved that your point is total bullshit does not mean I'm a socialist...And my big dick has made many a woman happy so you can keep the gay fantasies for your pet goat...Bye Adolf...and do your home work...and thanks for realizing that I am smart...you did a fine job doing that...
freein2339 2 years ago
Republicans elected their first black represantative roughly 60 years before the democrats did.
Who led the filibuster for the 1964 civil rights act? (Al Gore's father a democrat)
Granted you guys have the first black president but I think the democrats were more racist than the republicans. Oh and I forgot the most important piece of history. In the late 19th century the democrats presidential slogan was "It's a white mans country let white men rule."
surfrvb101 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
By the way , whatever "nazi" meant years and years ago..if somebody calls you a nazi TODAY it ain't good...much like calling walter willaimns , thomas sowell etc uncle toms...Like many other words they can become "nicknames" to describe people or a group....got that Adolf...thus ending the lesson...sorry to be so stern with you but you asked for it...good luck in your days of researching the truth....
freein2339 2 years ago
@ freein2339
You are quite ignorant on racism my friend. You don't even know my race and you are so quick to denounce Williams and Sowell for going against the grain since 90% of black voted for Obama.
What president fought to end slavery? -Lincoln(Republican)
First party to nominate a black VP - Republicans in 1872 with Frederick Douglass
Only party to have a former klansman as a current member of the senate (democrat Robert Byrd).
surfrvb101 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
Please give the GOP "we love the knee-grow" song a rest..RIGHT NOW and for the past 40 the GOP has been the more racist party..Nixon and his southern stategy , reagan, mccain, bush, cheney and their support for aparthied, reagan for his supprt of housing discrimination, bush for his two stolen elections, bush again for his horrible acts during katrina, bush's mother for her racist remark during katrina, palin for her kkk style rallies...let's deal with today or is that too much
freein2339 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
"However, In 1929, Hitler called socialism 'an unfortunate word altogether'. According to Henry A. Turner, Hitler expressed regret for having integrated the word socialism into his party's name. Hitler wrote in 1930, 'Our adopted term 'Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not.'"
Now don't you feel silly?
BenkaiDebussy 2 years ago
@ BenkaiDebussy - look at what he did not what he said. I don't believe the words that politicians say I look at their actions. He socialized VW and the banks. How is that not socialism?
surfrvb101 2 years ago
Like I was mentioning in the other reply, it is socialism, but so are many of the things we do here in the US. Our military is socialized, our education is socialized, and certain industries like agriculture and airplane manufacturing are heavily subsidized. It does not make sense to say a certain nation is "Socialist" or "Capitalist." Certain industries can be more or less socialist, and this is true of any country. Certain industries also clearly benefit from socialism, while others do not.
BenkaiDebussy 2 years ago
And the public schools produce such scholars don't they. I wonder why people pay for both public and private schools instead of just paying for the public. Military is certainly a tough one. I don't think that blackwater could run our military but then again that is provided for in our Constitution. Healthcare is not and do not say it is in the general welfare clause because then you would just be ignorant.
surfrvb101 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
Have you always been this fucking stupid or did you take lessons....???
freein2339 2 years ago
While it's true that ALL economies are hybrids containing both elements of capitalism and socialism, it is incorrect to refer to the military (or police) as "socialist" as they are the exercise of powers inherent in government and not interventions in the economy. Further, fascism is not merely somewhat socialist, but is, in fact, by definition socialist in its application as all powers of ownership are exercised by govt (even though title ostensibly remains in private hands).
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
Hitler (like Obama) shunned the word "socialist" - but that is not evidence of anything. Even the original fascists in Italy stated explicitly that part of the doctrine involved the elimination of private property and no one would argue that the Nazis did not subsume the rights of the individual (including property rights) to the collective (state). That the Nazis WERE socialist has been recognized by political scientists and economists for decades - sorry you didn;t get the memo.
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
The "agents of accumulation" vs the "agents of redistribution" is the timeless tale of sophistry. The problem is the agents of accumulation are the original "recipients of stolen property." Today's U.S. (Gas) Chamber of Commerce & National Association of Manufacturers are part of the open borders crowd along with the RCC, ACLU, SPLC, NAACP, NOI, New Black Panthers, CAIR, MALDEF, ADL, La Raza & many others. These are "agents of anarchy" aka mass murderers. Put Walter E. William there, too.
lumpagogo 2 years ago
Bartender! I'll have what HE'S having!
Actually, Dr. Williams (and I) agree pretty much with Milton Friedman on the issue of open borders - that the idea is incompatible with the xistence of a Welfare state. Had you a grasp of realioty, you would know that any influx of productive individuals results in MORE and HIGHER PAYING jobs in this country - production begets production (and opportunity). It is those that wish to suck at the public teat that are the problem.
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
Immigration is treason
Treason is cyanide
Immigration is cyanide
------------------------------------------
We've exposed Dr. Walter E. William for the quackery which characterizes the good doctor's essential nature. Any further discussion with these faux-freedomites is not necessary.
lumpagogo 2 years ago
Wow. With such deep commentary as "immigration is treason" and "treason is cyanide", how can anyone possible question the divinely inspired intellect behind such awe-inspiring wit?
All you've "exposed" are your own glaring shortcomings.
Bravo!
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
Didn't Bush and reagan "steal" money when they give huge tax cuts to the very rich and created more homeless people in history ( Reagan) and ruined our economy ( Bush)...by the way , this uncle tom praised slavery so he should be stepped on like a roach...
freein2339 2 years ago
you must be dumb as dirt. a tax cut doesn't give anybody anything. it just takes doesn't TAKE as much from them. you are even a bigger idiot to think Sowell praises slavery. Try reading any of this 50+ books. You just want to live like a dependent child--at someone else expense. Your kind are the REAL roaches of humanity---looking to take instead of producing your own. You are big-time ghetto to think that it is the rich who are doing the stealing. They simply produce wealth.
fzqlcs 2 years ago
So if your mortgage company tells you that your payment will be cut by 20% do you gain anything...???...you are a fucking idiot..And Sowell did defend slavery , just as clarence thomas, walter williams and jesse peterson did...all useless uncle toms that should be stepped on like a roach....And how would you know what the rich do with their money....you ain't rich....asshole...
freein2339 2 years ago
thank for confirming my suspicion that you are fucking ignorant. you think like a real porch n
fzqlcs 2 years ago
to freein2339 - You obviously have no clue about economics. If Bush, Reagan or anyone else cut taxes for the rich and for corporations that did not put anyone on the streets. In fact it probably took more people off the streets. If you give more money back to small businesses and corporations (it actually starts out as their money anyways) then they will have more of an incentive for capital investment to grow their business and thus jobs are created.
surfrvb101 2 years ago
The tax cuts DID NOT WORK...That's why Bush Sr called it "voodoo economics"...And under the reagan administration more people became homeless then under any other administration look it up..And companies only create jobs when their product or service is in greater demand..Tax cuts do not do that...that's common sense..
freein2339 2 years ago
Tax cuts free up capital that allow businesses to expand and produce jobs. And, gee, you may love old man Bush, but his statement about voodoo economics was in the primary before Reagan was elected. The economic recovery launched by those Reagan tax cuts was the longest in U.S. history. It made all of the papers. Even CNN is not in denial about this. What kind of shit are government schools teaching these days to produce morons like you?
fzqlcs 2 years ago
The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before — and the poverty rate had actually risen.
freein2339 2 years ago
Clinton turned the floundering economy around. Even the Bush administration's own Council of Economic Advisers dates the beginning of the economic boom to 1995, during Clinton's first term.
Yet, Republicans anxious to take credit for this resurgence will tell you ad nauseam that it was Reagan's 1981 tax cut that fueled these positive economic developments 14 years later.
freein2339 2 years ago
i think this is an unproductive expenditure of time, but would you please explain what Clinton did to turn the economy around. Please provide some, any, rationale for this absurd conclusion. Clinton simply benefited from the dynamics in reduced military spending made possible when Reagan forced the Soviet Union into collapse. But please, you tell me the actions that Clinton took. NAFTA?
fzqlcs 2 years ago
In February 2000, the United States entered the 107th consecutive month of economic expansion -- the longest economic expansion in history.
22.2 million new jobs have been created since 1993, the most jobs ever created under a single Administration -- and more new jobs than Presidents Reagan and Bush created during their three terms. 91 percent (19.9 million) of the new jobs have been created in the private sector, the highest percentage in 50 years.
freein2339 2 years ago
Unemployment is down from 7.5 percent in 1992 to 4.0 percent in June 2000, and in April the unemployment rate was the lowest in over 30 years. The unemployment rate has fallen for seven years in a row, and has remained below 5 percent for 34 months in a row.
The poverty rate has fallen from 15.1 percent in 1993 to 12.7 percent in 1998. Thats the lowest poverty rate since 1979 and the largest five-year drop in poverty in nearly 30 years
freein2339 2 years ago
They have repeated this economic lie so often that they seem to believe it themselves, even as we are again experiencing the economic nightmare of Reaganomics from the Bush White House and Congress.... cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations and forget about balancing the budget.
Credit-card Reaganomics, thy name is RECESSION!
freein2339 2 years ago
Wow, even Obama (the biggest spender in US history) is having trouble trying to continue blaming Bush a year after he took over. You are glow-in-the-dark pathetic to try and pin it on RR.
fzqlcs 2 years ago
The number of people living below the poverty line grew every year of the Reagan and
George H.W. Bush administrations, the national debt tripled, the trade deficit quadrupled, and families'
personal savings declined
freein2339 2 years ago
Reagan 's economic policies were a disaster...look it up stupid...
freein2339 2 years ago
First of all don't call me stupid. That is no way to sway somebody to believe you.
I understand all of the statistics that you are citing and will take you at your word on that. Your fundamental flaw is that you assume that since something happened under Clinton then it is because he did something. I would say that look at the 10+ years after a policy had been enacted to understand its effects.
surfrvb101 2 years ago
Look at what Reagan inherited when he took office. Now that was much worse than what Obama inherited and he never once bitched about it. His tax cuts are responsibly for the 20+ years of growth that occurred after them. I don't know what school of thought you come from but raising taxes promotes only one kind of growth and that is government growth which is also the only kind of growth that doesn't actually contribute to the growth of GDP.
surfrvb101 2 years ago
In order to understand all of this you must also look at many the other forces out there like what forced Reagan to triple the national debt. Well for better or for worse we were in the cold war. If you don't like tripling the national debt then i hope you don't approve of Obama's policies. Reagan's spending wasn't even close to what Obama's will be and his was so we wouldn't get a nuke up our ass not so we could pay for your healthcare.
surfrvb101 2 years ago
Pay for my healthcare..??? Typical racist redneck response...your true colors finally came out...took long enough..The fact is Adolf our country pays more for health care then most industrilized countries and we receive less...Taiwan has better healthcare then we do and guess what..??? Most other countries do not have their citizens going bankrupt from health care costs..Maybe these other countries actually CARE about their citizens...something conservatives have yet to learn....
freein2339 2 years ago
Wow so you know nothing about me at all yet you call me a racist redneck and Adolf Hitler. Someone's stance on healthcare has nothing to do with race buddy and as for Hitler I bet you don't even know what NAZI stands for. If you can tell me what NAZI stands for I will continue this discussion. If not I have no use for you or any of you minions out there. And by the way we have the best health care system in the world and over 85% of medical inventions come from the US.
surfrvb101 2 years ago
The American health care system puts patients at greater risk of harm from medical or surgical errors than patients elsewhere and ranks behind the top countries in extending the lives of the elderly. It has a mixed record on preventive care — above average in vaccinating seniors against the flu, below average in vaccinating children — and a mixed record of caring for chronic and acute conditions.
freein2339 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
Do the tens of millions of Americans with no coverage agree with that? How about the Americans who've had to declare bankruptcy because they couldn't afford their health care bills? Or the workers who've seen their premiums quadruple? Or the families who wait in long lines for care? Or the businesses who struggle to compete because of health care costs?
There are countries that don't have this problem...do your homework Adolf...
freein2339 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
First, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), France has the best health care system in the world . It has been widely reported that the WHO found the French system to be number 1 while the Canadian system is number 30 and the U.S. number 37.
I'm sorry but I should call you what you are...a stupid nazi...
freein2339 2 years ago
the best...???
the one with 18 percent of the population under age 65 being uninsured?
• the one that spends more in healthcare than any other country in the world ($2.4 trillion in 2007)?
• the one that is only ranked 37th among industrialized nations by the World Health Organization for health care quality and performance?
• the one where 61% of bankruptcies are due to high medical bills?
• the one that wastes $31 billion a year just so doctors can get paid by insurance companies?
freein2339 2 years ago
Maybe you should see how the WHO comes up with their rankings. One of their major issues is access. In most countries that have socialized health insurance everyone has access but that doesn't help someone who has to wait in line for 6+ months for a surgery and they die while in line. the WHO doesn't account for that.
DO YOUR RESEARCH! Until you can tell me what the word NAZI is short for shut your mouth.
surfrvb101 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
In some ways, health care is less "socialized" overseas than in the United States. Almost all Americans sign up for government insurance (Medicare) at age 65. In Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands, seniors stick with private insurance plans for life. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is one of the planet's purest examples of government-run health care.
Get your head out of your ass Adolf...and do your homework stupid....
freein2339 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
As for those notorious waiting lists, some countries are indeed plagued by them. Canada makes patients wait weeks or months for nonemergency care, as a way to keep costs down. But studies by the Commonwealth Fund and others report that many nations -- Germany, Britain, Austria -- outperform the United States on measures such as waiting times for appointments and for elective surgeries...
Damn Adolf this is too easy..I've have to use my other foot in put in your ass now...lol
freein2339 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
On average, the Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays. Quality is high; life expectancy and recovery rates for major diseases are better than in the United States. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person annually on health care; the United States spends more than $7,000.
How's the research coming..???
freein2339 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.
------
since you have a little dick you might want to take notes
freein2339 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
"The median wait time in Canada to see a special physician is a little over four weeks with 89.5% waiting less than 3 months."
"The median wait time for surgery is four weeks with 82.2% waiting less than 3 months."
Not to mention that more serious procedures are given higher priority, so your "dying while waiting 6 months" scenario is pure fantasy.
Even though Nazi stands for National Socialist Party, it doesn't mean that the Nazis were actually socialist (they weren't).
BenkaiDebussy 2 years ago
@BenkaiDebussy:
If Canada is so great why did a canadian ambulance in Ontario drive a 49 year old union guy to Detroit when he was having a heart attack. It is pretty sad they were stopped for extra screening. At leas you know what Nazi meant and yes they were socialists. Hitler socialized VW and all of the banks among other things.
surfrvb101 2 years ago
Did you even read the quotes I gave you? The Nazi party may have done a couple socialist things, but Hitler himself did not harbor any good will towards Marxism. The US is also partly socialist (public education, roads, police, etc).
Many Americans also travel to Canada for care. That is an anecdote, however, and does not change the fact that quality of care in Canada is measurably equal to or better than ours. Search "health care comparison US Canada" on Wikipedia for a bunch of info.
BenkaiDebussy 2 years ago
You should read Atlas Shrugged.
Milton Friedman said it best, "We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork." That is the problem with where we are now. We reward the nonproductive and penalize the productive.
surfrvb101 2 years ago
Comment removed
lumpagogo 2 years ago
While it is true that some Americans travel to Canda for (fee for service) care, it is a trickle in comparison to the numberws of Canadians who come to the US because they cannot afford to wait for "free" (rationed) care.
In actual fact, every reputable study demonstrates that ACTUAL CARE is far superior in the US than in Canada (as even the Wikipedia article demonstrates). Only studies that include things unreated to care ($, life expectancy, infant mortality, etc.) place the US lower.
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
According to Health Canada's official statistics, some 170 Ontarians (just one province) die every year waiting for "elective" heart surgery - some because they die outright; some because they become too ill to survive the surgery. Tell THEM that "dying while waiting 6 months" is "pure fantasy".
FletchforFreedom 2 years ago
As for health insurance increasing you should ask yourself why that happened. It doesn't just happen on its own. In 1980 there were roughly 160 regulations on insurance and now there are a
surfrvb101 2 years ago
@surfrvb101
U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; they spend roughly 20 cents of every dollar for nonmedical costs, such as paperwork, reviewing claims and marketing. France's health insurance industry, in contrast, covers everybody and spends about 4 percent on administration. Canada's universal insurance system, run by government bureaucrats, spends 6 percent on administration.
You should ask yourself why you're a nazi...nazi
freein2339 2 years ago
Comment removed
freein2339 2 years ago
The economy that Reagan inherited was no where near as bad as the one Obama inherited...Obama is dealing with a worldwide economic crisis..Reagan bascially had to deal with inflation and unemployment...But Reagan's policies did not work ..case in point the large number of homeless people created under the reagan administration...look that up as well...do some research ....
freein2339 2 years ago
If you don't like being called stupid ...don't tell peple they have no clue about economics especially after they state facts and use common sense...reagan was a raicist and a thief and he economic policies while they may have hurt Russian also hurt our country...And who benefitted from that...??? Rich people
freein2339 2 years ago
Answer the question Adolf and stop acting like a bitch....
freein2339 2 years ago
Comment removed
surfrvb101 2 years ago
Nicely put, simply brilliant!
ntn1987 2 years ago
I've thought what this guy does for a long time. I've been in plenty of arguments over it. I'm glad to hear someone else taking the same side.
u0455294 2 years ago
Its called ending all the tax breaks and other benefits like out sourceing American jobs and cracking down on rich , greedy people who would other wise "capitalize" on the people. Out source to avoid tax and to pay lower wages and still get tax breaks as an American company has to end. So yea your damn right re-distribute and have the rich pay more tax and allow the little guy a chance to get ahead it wont hurt the rich....There already rich!! The little guy made you ,give some back , greedy ass
caddy1010 2 years ago
I would also argue that these entitlements are for individual gain. They enable a congressman to get elected and gain power. After all if someone running for election under the slogan of "I'll raise your taxes by 50% for your own good." They would be laughed off the stage. If 30% of your income is good for the country, why wouldn't 80% be great? Where does it end?
goatranced 2 years ago
It ends with economic analysis and the political will of the populace. There is no innate correlation between tax amount and good achieved, so the 30%->80% argument makes no sense. And all politicians act out of self-interest. If that in itself disqualified taxation or distribution of taxes, then it's all bad, and the Constitution needs to be rewritten. No public support of roads, military, etc.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
The point I was making was the irony of congress and if we can envision a limit, not that we should pay no taxes. I'm not proposing anarchy. Spending is the problem. The government can transfer private wealth without taxes. Such as deficit spending and printing more money are other ways.
goatranced 2 years ago
Ultimately the government gets all of its money through taxation. It pays back bond holders with those taxes. Taxes and bonds (more taxes) fund deficit spending.
It sounds like you oppose particular uses of tax money, not the actual taking of taxes. In the video Williams equates that taking with theft. I don't always like how my tax money is used, but I think Williams' argument is baloney served up on a poppy-cock bun lightly sprinkled with balderdash.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
However, you could argue that if Williams refuses to pay taxes, he is committing theft. Citizenship can be given freely, but our country (and no country I know of) does so. This would be analagous to a corporation charging for the product it produces. Membership has its benefits and its price. In the case of USA citizenship, the price and benefits have been set by the Constitution and continuing legislation produced by elected officials.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
If a citizen refuses to pay membership dues, penalties may be applied. If a citizen no longer wishes to honor the contract, s/he may renounce citizenship ...and all the benefits that come with it.
Williams seems to want something for nothing. And that's nothing new.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
If a store owner refuses to pay membership dues to the mafia, penalties may be applied. If he no longer wishes to honor the contract, s/he may renounce protection ...and all the benefits that come with it.
foolcow1976 2 years ago
foolcow1976: Your point?
Are you unhappy that citizens are born such, that you feel powerless to set terms of citizenship, or that the government isn't using enforcers to stick your head in a vice when you break the contract or try to renounce it?
I don't think the USA guvment will break your knees if you choose to become a citizen of Darfur. I'd have suggested Myanmar, but they don't take just anyone.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
My point is simply that your whole argument is circular.
You defend the government's taking of people's money by force, on the basis that it is done "legally". But legality is determined by the government. So in truth, they are no different from the mob.
I'm not particular about the form of punishment they inflict, but I suppose I'd prefer having my head in a vice to being put in a cage for ten years.
Not sure what your point is about Darfur.
foolcow1976 2 years ago
foolcow1976: The circularities involved in legality and morality are not my invention.
'Legality' in the USA is also determined by you, the citizen. This is quite different from arrangements with mobsters. The issue of legality comes into defining theft (illegal taking). Whether or not what is legal is actually morally appropriate is altogether another matter. That is something many here seem to confuse. The video is also very confused on issues of morality.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
@LordOfMictlan The motive or sanction of a crime does not change it's nature.
coltrane1966 2 years ago
@coltrane1966: How is it immoral to require those who essentially own the system and are the primary beneficiaries of the system to provide for its maintenance? We are talking about systemic problems here, not simply taking to enrich yourself as an individual.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
@LordOfMictlan Then you accept that 1. you or others have a right to enforce unchosen responsibilities on persons unknown.
2. Man is a sacrificial Animal.
3. Mans purpose is for the collective.
4. That the victim benefits from the crime i.e. a positive can be derived from a negative.
coltrane1966 2 years ago
@coltrane1966: It sounds like you are trying to push me into the false dilemma of saying we are either ants or sharks. But we are neither. We are individuals living within a collective, and the interests of both have to be balanced.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
@LordOfMictlan I'm only trying to establish your actual premise.
I see you actually do hold those premises but you also see the immorality of those premises, unfortunately you still come to the same conclusion because of your ignorance of Economics, History, Politics and Morality.
Your other replies to the 4 points clearly demonstrate this, as you answer with a negative and then justify that very premise anyway with fallacies.
coltrane1966 2 years ago
If you say so.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
1) To some degree the society does have that power. As it oversteps what individuals collectively feel are its rights to impose responsibilities, it puts itself in increasing jeopardy. Are you suggesting that some of the wealthy might not want to pitch in with other wealthy to shoulder the burden of maintaining a stable society and economy? Freeloading?
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
2) No. But man makes sacrifices to pay for the benefits that society brings. It's called cost.
3) No. But man needs the collective. The wealthy would not be such without it.
4) Not sure what your point is. But transactions are usually a mix of costs and benefits. Again, asking those who benefit most from society to pay more for it doesn't seem immoral, and it definitely has not been legislated into a crime.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
My point about Darfur is that you can reject your contract with the USA government and and sign up for the one offered by the government of Darfur. Maybe you will find terms more to your liking(?).
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
To argue that a form of taking is theft because it is immoral according to an ancient legal system that actually proclaims such taking as legal and moral is beyond circular. It's ignorant and ridiculous. Williams should be sufficiently informed to distinguish legality/morality and to actually know something about Jewish Law if he is going to base his argument on it.
If anyone here wants to claim that a particular form of taxation SHOULD be illegal because it is immoral, argue the morality.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
I never signed a contract with the USA.
foolcow1976 2 years ago
Although I don't know your status, I suspect your parents signed for you by popping you out in the USA. If your beef is membership criteria for natives, that's really another matter. Maybe you could promote a constitutional amendment limiting citizenship to willing adults 18 and older. The rest get no benefits and probably have to move somewhere else.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
The perceived double standard is really an oversimplification. We haven't given our neighbor any constitutional power to come into our house and take our wealth.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
You are making my point for me. You, as my neighbor have no constitutional power to come into my house and take my wealth, yet it's taken. Theft is still illegal, is it not? So am I to assume that the term "general welfare" in the constitution means anything you want that you don't have. I think not. None of the 16 enumerated powers mentions using tax revenue for social security. So why is it legal for congress to spend money on this? And this is only one of many.
goatranced 2 years ago
I'm not making your point for you. The government has many constitutional powers that your neighbor does not have. The government is not your neighbor. End of story and inapt analogy. And if you think 'general welfare' has some specific meaning contrary to the activities in question, you are free to lobby for an ammendment that clarifies it or to create a test case for the Supreme Court. All are within your powers as a citizen.
LordOfMictlan 2 years ago
I think what Dr. Williams is trying to say regardless of moral values, or constitutional law is that we see a double standard. If I came to your house, took your checkbook, and wrote checks out to myself I would be guilty of fraud and theft. Even if I did something so noble as to write a check out to the US Treasury, I'm sure I would still be guilty. Congress gets a free pass because they create legislative entitlements that do the same, and call it "common good."
goatranced 2 years ago
There is a case to be made that we all benefit from Welfare, an argument beyond insuring ourselves from our own failures. It is unavoidable that there will be a bottom of the system, and people at the bottom cost us all no matter how we decide to pay for it. And when wealth inequality becomes too extreme, it brings on the danger of revolt, a costly problem at best. At worst you may lose your capitalist system. It pays to feed the golden goose and build the community you live in.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
Williams claims to base his morality on Jewish law. That same law fully and repeatedly contradicts his claim. Christian morality also rejects his claim. If he wants to appeal to some other system of morality, or if he wants to make an independent moral case for his equation, he will need to put out another video.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
So taking by force is OK if the constitution says so, but not OK if it is subsequently legislated? What if the constitution mandated communism? What determines 'rightful' property? Again, you are misusing the term theft. It is sufficient to claim that the act is immoral or morally equivalent to theft. But it is another thing altogether to defend that claim.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
Taking by force is not OK by the Constitution. The authority of the federal government is limited and enumerated. That design was essential to the concept of individual liberty. Sadly, Congress routinely exceeds their proper authority when they legislate theft (redistribute income) or take other actions beyond their charge. Citizens, many wanting to be taken care of like children, have voted to hand over liberty in return for what is seen as benign conservatorship. Theft is now a virtue.
LibertyPen 3 years ago
Legislated theft is a contradiction in terms. Are you saying that it is not OK for the government to force its citizens to pay any taxes? Earlier it sounded like you approved of taxation to support 'constitutional' services. That would be a taking by force.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
And, FYI, the constitution explicitly gives congress the power to collect taxes for the general welfare of the USA:
"Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
LibertyPen, I notice your profile says you have worked in Social Services for over 30 years. That means that my rightful property has been 'stolen' and given to you, correct? Would you like to issue an apology for your knowing participation in a 'crime?' If you would like to compensate the USA for your 30 years of salary and government benefits, I'd be glad to give you my address. Do you have any plans to quit your job in protest?
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
Williams' equation of taxation with theft is definitionally wrong, morally simplistic, and a little embarrassing coming from a professor. And I doubt we'd have much of a military, road system, or education system by ringing a bell in front of your local WalMart or mailing out optional tax forms. There may, however, be private means of providing some of these services. Toll roads would be an example.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
Dr. Williams makes no case against taxation as a means to fund federal services authorized by the Constitution. However, when the rightful property of one citizen is taken by force to simply be given to another citizen (as with welfare), it is theft, pure and simple. Using a politician rather than a gun does not change the morality of the action; it is simply legalizes it. This is one illustration how there is no inherent relationship between morality and legality.
LibertyPen 3 years ago
The bigger question is whether or not taxation is a moral form of 'taking.' Is it moral for the government to require its citizens to contribute to the maintenance of common property and goals? A different question is whether or not it is moral for the government to do so while offering little-to-no control of the size or use of that contribution by its citizens. Big questions, difficult answers.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
I think some of the confusion in this conversation is the labeling of taxation as theft. Like murder, theft is an illegal form of an act that may not always be illegal, or even wrong. Taxation is legal and by definition not theft.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
Is theft then justified so long as the majority of your fellow citizens vote for the people committing the theft? I don't dispute the need for taxation. It is a necessary evil that I agree to subject myself to in order for the government to perform their Constitutional functions. Yet the government continually exceeds its authority all the while forcing me to pay for its illegal excesses. I see no justification because my fellow citizen is complicit. It doesn't work for a riot or for theft.
pj8418 3 years ago
Taxes are not "stolen goods" as long as they're collected and allocated by elected representatives.
CountArtha 3 years ago
Using a politician, rather than a gun, to take the rightful property of someone else is an act of theft. It is just legal theft. But, from a moral point of view, the actions are essentially identical. I believe, as did Frederick Bastiat, that what is immoral for individuals to do is also immoral for governments to do. Therein lies Dr. Williams' point.
LibertyPen 3 years ago
I disagree. People cede certain of their liberties to government in exchange for protection of their rights and persons (the Social Contract). If the government spends your money doing anything else (which unfortunately is about 90% of spending nowadays), THEN it is reprehensible. But taxation in and of itself is not immoral any more than having a military or law enforcement is.
CountArtha 3 years ago
Rightful property? You mean like access to a highly developed economy, the technological advancements of a society, a nice law system, a military, a police force, roads, waterways, protection in foreign lands, etc? Or do you mean the wealth that is produced on top of those common goods?
Even the right to property is a thing given by society. In the absence of society, your property is only yours if you can fend off those who would take it by force, just like the rest of the animals on earth.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
There are costs to living in a society. There might be better, more proportionate means of dealing with those costs, but the costs are not theft. You can always reject citizenship and wander where you will. But wandering space is shrinking in this crowded world.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
In some cases taxation may be perceived as unfair in that not all taxpayers receive the value they think they deserve. But that does not mean taxation is theft.
Whether or not the market can take care of community needs is of huge importance. But, you are right, it has no bearing on whether or not taxation is theft.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago
Actually, Exodus 22:2 proves my point. That is an example of manslaughter, not murder. There are many instances of killing in the Bible that are not murder.
And whatever you want to call it, it is obvious that the Mosaic Law not only legitimizes taxation, it requires it. And if you believe God is the source of those laws, you have to admit that God required it too. It's very funny hearing Williams base his argument on a set of laws that requires the very thing he wants to condemn.
LordOfMictlan 3 years ago