Tax the 1%...

Because your response showed the level of thought you put into it.

I was nice to respond to your stupid question about whether this was in addition to local property taxes. 5 seconds of thought would have shown you that the two are in no way related.

Then you followed on with a response that verified that your entire thought on the subject was much less than 5 seconds.

 

It was a joke feigning your same concern about those on the other side of this proposal. I like it but it is too easy. I want to broaden the vision a little I prefer that we use some of this enhance to the qualifications of these people either through free schooling or training so that the trip to middle class, requires a little homework, a little sweat and deal with some of the reasons they may not have got there themselves. Being in a state of poverty is not just about the lack of money that defines it.

 

That is entirely on topic.

You always do this .. when you're called out you say 'off topic'.

 

What are you going to do about the people who 'can't' (aka, won't) live on whatever amount you decided to gift them? They'll be your new poor and starving after all .. you must help them, right? You'll need to give them extra money, obviously. Then when they can't live on the next NEXT increase (because they're determined to live beyond whatever means they have), you can just increase it again. Keep going like that forever, while pretending human nature doesn't exist. Keep telling yourself everyone is exactly the same, so the same money will work for everyone.

Meantime, you can fund those perpetual increases by confiscating surplus from those who live within their means. That will be totally fair and equitable, yes?

 

Right. Because they do not exist.

Yes it is.

Yes they do.

Ignorant people need education whether they are ready or not.

True.

As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"

It's really quite basic. You can't see what you won't see- and you are the only person who can change that.

Thanks for confirming that you have been comprehensively and conclusively demolished, you know it, and you will never have any factual, ethical, or logical arguments to offer.

 

When government takes over companies, those companies no longer compete. East Germany is a prime example. When the wall came down, so did all the East German factories. They were obsolete. The government didn't spend the money to upgrade and modernize. Thus they didn't do a united Germany any good. Look at Russia. Their economy is run on weapons sales, gas and oil. They make little else to sell the world. Same with government run N. Korea and Cuba. It would be the same way here. Private business knows they have to constantly upgrade, modernize and come out with knew products if they are to survive.

 

It's not supernatural, just not yet fully understood.

Nope. There is a vast intellectual gulf even between us and the chimpanzee. There is a reason we out-competed the Neanderthals and Denisovans, who were much larger, stronger, and had bigger brains.

No that is the exact, diametric opposite of the truth. Only government -- the state -- can secure and reconcile the equal individual rights of all to life, liberty, and property in the fruits of one's labor:

"... to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."

Remember?

You mean the landowner or other privilege holder.

Which is why I oppose it. By contrast, you support institutions that give the non-contributing privilege holder MORE than the contributor.

Which is why, in contrast to you, I advocate reforming institutions to ensure rewards commensurate with contributions and costs commensurate with deprivations while you advocate the opposite.

That is absurd, disingenuous garbage with no basis in fact, which is why you cannot answer The Question:

How, exactly, is production aided by the landowner's demand that the producer pay HIM for what government, the community and nature provide?

No one has ever been able to answer The Question, and you will not be able to either.

"Shut up and get back on the treadmill!"

False and absurd. No one freely chose to have their rights forcibly stripped from them and given to rich, greedy, privileged parasites as their private property. No one chose to have to pay a privileged parasite just for permission to work, shop, access desirable public services, etc. But that is what was done to them, and I will thank you to remember it.

 

1) On the contrary, Govt can't do anything of the sort, unless they're totalitarian. In a totalitarian state (the only kind which can do what you want it to do), you will sacrifice all your freedoms to get what you want.

2) No, not even slightly. Some people choose to own land, and some choose not to. Don't like not owning land? Then buy some. Don't like the work and commitment of paying off a mortgage? Then don't buy any. You can't judge one of these choices more than the other. You can't judge them at all. Reality judges choices, and the buck stops with reality.

3) No idea what 'institutions' you're talking about. Unless it's capitalist democracy, which I'm all for. The freedom and opportunity to choose success OR failure.

4) I advocate for personal responsibility, within the context of small scale collectivism, within the broader context of a capitalist democracy with free education and healthcare. However, if I was King of the World I'd go full blown Commie in terms of welfare. Any Govt assistance (housing and/or income) would be contingent upon working. IOW, you want welfare? You work for it - and you work where I say you're to work, doing what I tell you to do. Don't like those conditions? Too special for that stuff? Get a regular job, and don't say you weren't offered a secure alternative.

5) "Nature" has never provided a free lunch. Even the alpha male has to find food every day, prior to fighting for that particular status.

6) Nobody has had their rights 'stripped from them'. Demonstrate a single incidence of an ordinary citizen being legally prevented from owning property.

 

No, that's just another false and absurd claim from you with no basis in fact: nothing but puerile "Meeza hatesa gubmint!" nonsense.

If you think government can't secure your rights, try no government.

Again, that claim is just false, absurd, and lacking any factual basis.

No, that is nothing but more absurd "Meeza hatesa gubmint!" nonsense from you.

False. It is indisputably the case that the landowner qua landowner only takes and does not contribute. He is the definitive, quintessential non-contributor, and because he owns the privilege of taking, you demand that he be legally entitled to take from others in return for no contribution. That is just a fact of objective physical reality.

But many more than the "some" who "choose" not to are just forcibly deprived of land against their will, and thus fall into neither of your two camps. And in all cases, their rights to liberty have been removed by force and made into the private property of landowners.

I don't like being a victim of systematic, institutionalized injustice, with the "choice" of being either just a victim of that injustice or both a victim and a perpetrator of it.

<sigh> We have been over this many times. Do you think when someone objects to being victimized by a protection racket, it is responsive to advise them to just buy a protection racket of their own?

Why should I have to labor for decades to pay greedy, privileged parasites just for permission to exercise my right to liberty?

Why would I have to buy permission to work, shop, access public services and infrastructure, etc. from a greedy, privileged parasite?

But I can judge the disingenuousness of calling them "choices."

I can and do.

Yes, and the historical reality is that societies that allow their citizens to be laid as human sacrifices on the altar of landowner greed are doomed.

The legal institutions of private property in land and the associated landowner subsidy paid for by taxes on economic activity.

Citizens United is the emblem of "capitalist democracy," and you can see where it leads.

It's not freedom when some people own the opportunities, and everyone else must pay them full market value just for permission to access those opportunities.

Capitalist democracy is unstable, because capitalism gradually transfers all wealth and power to a smaller and smaller privileged elite, especially landowners.

But the human institution of private landowning sure has, at least for landowners.

But the landowner simply sits back and demands that the productive feed him in return for no contribution, and they are legally required to do so.

That is just a bald falsehood. Everyone has. And the privileged ended up owning them.

See how you had to deceitfully substitute "property" for "land" because you knew you were wrong?

 

Anarchists are an obvious means to highlight your error. The authoritaran personality is a right wing outcome. You can refer to the likes of Stalinists, but the left critique that nonsense the best. Of course authoritarian right wingers take that critique, such as Orwell's Animal Farm, to say told you so. Amusing how they accept anarchist socialism all of a sudden

 

My dear, I'm running rings around you.

And that feeble property/land thing was hilarious!

 

You have been demolished and humiliated, you know it, and you have no answers. Simple.

It was sad, actually. You should have known I would not let you get away with such a juvenile rhetorical trick.

 

Funny? You're not good at it.

Not what this is for and how does you proposal serve to improve the lives of retirees? Disabled?

The program is not permitted to be used for any other purposes.

 

No, it's not.

And I say this when someone tries to avoid the topic by derailing it.

 

Your comment makes no sense. Try again.

Your hatred of retirees and the handicapped serves no purpose in any rational discussion.

 

I used to have a girl friend with a three year old daughter who could play your game just as good as you- maybe better. Older she got, the more belligerent she became, and never once considered anything but her own view. Went into tirades of abuse anytime she was confronted. I knew her for about 10 years- at 13, still the same. However, she eventually grew up, and in her early 20's came back and apologized to her family for being such a total pain in the ass. There's hope for some- but that fades with age. After a point, it's just what you have to live with till you die.

 

Your problem is you are STILL not reading it right.

 

<yawn> No, of course you didn't. Stop makin' $#!+ up.

Look in the mirror, champ.

See, I was once like you. In my teens and twenties I was quite the Randroid. But with some experience of life, work, and business, and a willingness to think, I grew up.

So, nothing like my posts, which are fully factual, logical, grammatical and civil. Check.

Were you thinking of ever actually offering any facts or logic to support your views? Anything but your usual baseless ad hominem fabrications? Let's see, shall we:

Nope. Still nothing.

You are just sad, now.

 

Hey if you are expecting some kind of approval, or concession, forget it. When you measure yourself by the extent you insult others, you're using a rubber ruler. Never works.
Good luck- you obviously need it. And go away, you have nothing of value to contribute from my point of view.

 

Wrong.
It is up to the communicator to ensure the message is understood as intended.

 

For starters, I really do not need you to instruct me as to which thread I should go to. (Did someone anoint you with such authority?)

Now, to go to your points:

(1) Just how might the federal government seize "10% of the property of the top 1%" if it is not "authoritatively superior to the citizenry"?

That point seems self-explanatory.

(2) If "[t]his topic is not about sources of income," then why would you insist that the typical Social Security recipient has only about "$18,500 per year" to live on?

If you did not say precisely that, then you certainly implied it.

(3) I would agree that this topic is "not about class envy"; at least, it was not about that originally.

But you have transmuted it into exactly that.

 

If you can't stay on topic go elsewhere.

 

From you? I'm definitely not expecting reason, grace, civility, or anything of the sort.

Ahem. YOU are the one who initiated the ad hominem personal insults in our exchange, in post #314 in this thread:

Remember? You even chose the specific word, "personally." So if you have a complaint about people who insult others personally, look in the mirror.

Got it?

No, I've had my share, thanks.

Right: if you continue to read what I post, there is a real threat to your false and evil beliefs. Sorry, but I'm all about exposing and refuting false and evil beliefs, so if you don't want to see your false and evil beliefs exposed and refuted, put me on ignore.

 

Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 says direct taxes such as a wealth or asset tax shall be apportioned among the states by population:

"Clause 4: No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken."

See:

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/...ug-pp-johnson-a-wealth-tax-is-constitutional/

 

Yes that's why you're not going to have a direct tax on a citizens property. It's why we had to have an amendment to get an income tax.

That apportioned thingy

"
Why Not Apportion It, Then?
If the wealth tax is illegal as an unapportioned direct tax, Warren’s answer might be to apportion it as the Constitution directs. But apportionment has stood in the way of direct taxes since the country’s founding, for a good reason: It produces bizarre and inequitable results. Justice Chase observed in Hylton that apportioning such a tax is so odd that he could not believe Congress would ever do it.

Here’s why: Apportionment by state means the total revenue collected would have to be determined first (presumably by Congress), then apportioned to each state according to population, not according to wealth. So if California contains 12 percent of the national population (as it did in the 2010 census), it will pay 12 percent of the tax, regardless of how much money the people there have.

This would be bad enough applied to a normal tax, but a tax that falls only on the property of the super wealthy could not possibly be administered this way. Warren says her tax will fall on “roughly the wealthiest 75,000 households” in America. But are those households equally distributed around the country? Of course not."
https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/08/heres-elizabeth-warrens-wealth-tax-completely-unconstitutional/

And how would you possibly assess the individual wealth of those subjected to it anyway and do it annually?