Boombats wrote:However finding a gun dealer that doesn't do background checks or send your name to the feds is a different story. See, I got this criminal record...

You're right. New York bans private transactions. I guess you can move to Vermont.

zom-zom wrote:

Boombats wrote:

matthew wrote:It's funny, my father's a retired federal law enforcement agent

I can't believe nobody noticed this.

The guy's a Piglet. All is revealed.

Hey now, my dad's a retired Chicago Police Man.

I turned out okay, except for liking some The Eagles songs, I guess.

I believe Steve mentioned, in this very thread, that his father was also in law enforcement. I wouldn't hold that against anyone.

matthew wrote:

clocker bob wrote: What argument is this long WSJ paste even supposed to be in support of?

I was addressing Steve's arrogance with the Journal article. I think that was obvious. After all, Wal-Mart pretty much stands for everything reviled by liberals and leftists.....right, bob?

And what does the WSJ article tell us about Wal Mart that is supposed to change our opinion of that company? I ask you again- do you know anything about the economy of Oaxaca? It's possibly the poorest state in Mexico. Areas with largely mestizo populations are treated even more poorly by the ruling Castillians. Oaxacans have been trying to get rid of their corrupt governor for a year. General strikes and rioting have been ongoing.

There is only one 'Wal Mart' style success story. It follows these lines.

NY TIMES 2003 wrote:Wal-Mart's power is changing Mexico in the same way it changed the economic landscape of the United States, and with the same formula: cut prices relentlessly, pump up productivity, pay low wages, ban unions, give suppliers the tightest possible profit margins and sell everything under the sun for less than the guy next door.

Wal Mart contributed substantially to the election campaign of Calderon ( a fraudulent victory ).

So, what does an article by the WSJ celebrating a Wal Mart store in Oaxaca tell Steve about his 'arrogance' or his leftism? Break down the lesson we can take from your article, please.

steve wrote:

danmohr wrote:I can't get behind the idea that, for all people whose income is above the aforementioned poverty line and who derive their income from job wages, a "progressive" tax system is fair. It goes against the values I was raised with - hard work, education, frugality, etc.

Apparenly "etc." doesn't include generosity.

I would not put that in the top five, no. Top ten, yes. My parents were pretty gung-ho about the idea of raising kids who were extremely self-reliant, constantly reinforcing the idea that we couldn't rely on anyone (not even them) to always take care of us. They both lost a parent when they were young and I'm sure that was a factor in their thinking.

I enjoy being generous but I want to choose the recipient(s) of my generosity. I guess this is technically selfish. To the extent that the government seeks to redistribute wealth, I would be happier with a tax system wherein I pay the exact same amount (or even a bit more) into the system but for all dollars above my fair slice of the common pie (police, roads, infrastructure, military, etc.), I get to check boxes on a form to decide where it goes. Maybe there are 100 charities or government offices (which do not include corporate subsidies) to choose from and everyone has to pick 10. The common pie slice part could be a flat system (with an optional low end cap) because everyone derives more or less the same value from police, firemen, roads, etc. Above the common slice, we could stick with a progressive system but all those monies are distributed according to the checkbox theory. Vetting the list of checkbox recipients would be pretty contentious, I imagine.

steve wrote:

Taking away more of the income that I earned simply because I earned more than someone else seems like negative reinforcement for positive behavior.

So, you think the incentive to earn more money is that it won't be taxed more? And people will decline to earn more if some of it will be taxed? That isn't my experience.

Oh, no, people will always want more money. I was merely trying to show how this activity seems to be antithetical to the sort of values that we as a country tend to value.

steve wrote:

Let's just pass a giant fucking federal sales tax on everything except food, health care, housing (including rent) and basic utilities and then we'll penalize everybody who spends money and presumably the rich will spend a whole bunch and the poor won't spend very much since they don't have much to spend...

You realize that is a flat tax, right? And that it just means everything is more expencive by (tax) percent, and that rich people can afford that better than poor people.

Flat taxes are unfair. Poor people need to keep more of their money than rich people bcause they can't suffer losses as easily.

But if essential things are not covered by this tax, it does not take money away from those people who can only afford the things they need. If people are spending money on things they want (like a television) instead of things they need (rent, food, heat), that is a bad decision and having that purchase be subjected to a sales tax seems like plenty of negative reinforcement. If people can afford some taxable things they want in addition to the things they need, then I think that they are no longer in a category that needs special protection. Buying a bunch of shit you want (as opposed to need) goes against the principle of frugality and taxing this bunch of shit seems like a good negative reinforcement there, too. I think that we could construct a tax system that actually reinforces constructive values instead of seemingly contradicting them.

steve wrote:The assumption that anyone can pull himself up by his bootstraps through hard work and self reliance hides an ignorance that some people weren't born with boots or the opportunity to earn boots. Being born with boots is by itself an enormous advantage, and not something to be taken lightly.

I think it's an advantage, but not the ultimate determining factor. Even the majority of people born with boots will have to work hard and do lots of really not enjoyable things in their life in order to make ends meet and even more to have something they would call "success". If you're born sans boots, you will probably have to work even harder and do even still more not enjoyable things in order to scrape by. But this was the case with the ancestors of the boot-born as well. It's the "doing a little better than your parents" goal and I think it applies to a pretty wide swath of folks with and without boots at birth. Possessing the correct values from which successful decisions can be made (and actually making wise decisions) is far more valuable than having a few thousand dollars in the bank. I think the latter is derived from the former in most cases. I think that the values are the boots.

Dan

Who benefits more from the $500 billion military-industrial complex, which makes American laws and contracts enforceable overseas and protects American assets at home from foreign conquest? The wealthy. 50% of taxes, corporate and personal, go to defense. If American corporations and American investors in American corporations want the services of an army to guard their wealth and open new markets, then they must pay the freight. Not only is a progressive tax fair for these reasons, but it is fair because it penalizes the greater consumption of the country's natural resources by the wealthy- they occupy more land, use more water, pollute more air.

Now, the IRS is an illegal corporation- the enforcement arm of the illegal US Federal Reserve- but as long as we have personal income taxes imposed by this illegal agency, they should be progressive.

danmohr wrote:Possessing the correct values from which successful decisions can be made (and actually making wise decisions) is far more valuable than having a few thousand dollars in the bank. I think the latter is derived from the former in most cases. I think that the values are the boots.

You're using less inflammatory language than right-wingers, but you're making the same argument: people are poor because they lack values.

I'm sure you will tell me this is not at all what you are saying, and that I am putting words in your mouth, and so forth.

But this is this implication of your argument -- that having correct values magically eliminates all the other root causes of persistent, cyclical poverty, and that proper values are the essential tools for producing boots out of thin air. Ultimately, this leads to the idea that people are poor because they deserve to be. Likewise, wealthy people must have correct values and therefore deserve to be rich. This whole concept is hideous, horrifying bullshit.

I enjoy being generous but I want to choose the recipient(s) of my generosity.

Conditional giving is not the same thing as generosity.

matthew wrote:

clocker bob wrote: And the solution for the poor people of Oaxaca is to bring in Wal Mart? Do you even know the first thing about the social strata of Mexico, and Oaxaca in particular? ( I know, why even ask? ) What argument is this long WSJ paste even supposed to be in support of? Your 'no minimum wage' argument? Your 'go get a job, you lazy bum' argument? What?

I was addressing Steve's arrogance with the Journal article. I think that was obvious. After all, Wal-Mart pretty much stands for everything reviled by liberals and leftists.....right, bob?

In your unnuanced black and white cartoon mind? Yes, yes it is.

danmohr wrote:Possessing the correct values from which successful decisions can be made (and actually making wise decisions) is far more valuable than having a few thousand dollars in the bank. I think the latter is derived from the former in most cases. I think that the values are the boots.

Dan

So poor people wouldn't be poor if they valued the right things? They just need to think right and work hard and they won't be poor any more?

These magic "values" of yours are luxuries. Only someone with enough money already would say something like "values matter more than money." If you have enough money, then sure, you can conduct yourself in whatever manner you like. You can take pride in it. If you are desperately poor, you have bigger problems than pride.

Starving honorably, or dying of disease, is still starving or dying, and anyone who thinks that's an acceptable price for "proportionality" can fuck off and go stand in the corner over there with Matthew.

steve wrote:These magic "values" of yours are luxuries. Only someone with enough money already would say something like "values matter more than money." If you have enough money, then sure, you can conduct yourself in whatever manner you like. You can take pride in it. If you are desperately poor, you have bigger problems than pride.

What chicanery. Besides, how do you define "desperately poor"? If by desperately poor you mean people who are seriously malnourished and/or homeless, in this country you'll be hard-pressed to find people like this, and I know you've probably been around this country a bit (as I have too). A great deal of "the homeless" are mentally ill who choose to stay out there or are plain just losers who have fucked up their lives or don't want to contribute to society and would rather be urchins...only a small fraction are in real genuine need because of circumstances which they could not control: disability, abandonment by family or whatever-let's get real here. Genuine poverty is virtually nonexistent in this country. That is a simple FACT. Forget the statistical definition of poverty as making this or that amount of money per year and focus on the real meaning of poverty: being in grave risk of death because of lack of the basic essentials of life due to circumstances beyond one's control. Where are these hordes of people in the U.S.? Hell even Appalachia, that common example of "poverty in the U.S.", doesn't fit the bill.

I love this argument, because when it comes to "the homeless" and "the needy" liberals exploit emotions to a spectacular degree and drown out objective facts. It reveals the heart of liberalism.

matthew wrote:Genuine poverty is virtually nonexistent in this country.

Wow.