Debunked, "Socialism has never worked"

If the left wants religion taxed they must accept taxation of every one of the left-wing nonprofits aimed at globull wormening and the like. Exempt nothing. Tax these fringe accounts out of existence. Use leftist tactics against them.

 

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

 

When the loss of $10 to a rich man is considered more important than a gain of $11 for a poor man, yeah, that's a bad thing.

 

WUT??!?

 

No. Capitalism is our economic system. Our federal government engages in social spending. That is political and is funded ultimately by the capitalist economy.

Since I can't watch the video and you don't want to tell me what is in it I can only deal with your words. True capitalism is our system. We do not have "state capitalism." What we have is an expensive, out-of-control federal government. Free education and medicare for all is not something our capitalist economy can afford. We are trillions in debt from all the prior social spending. That's pretty much it. Perhaps these are things we should have when we can afford them. I'd like to own a Ferrari but I can't afford it. That is reality.

Regulation is not socialism and it is not state capitalism. Regulation exists to make things regular. Regulation of the financial sector provides for some regularity consistent expectations.

Then stop using the term socialism. Venezuela is an obvious example of socialism at work.

 

Didn't you understand Reiver's explanation of a conservative social welfare evaluation function?

 

A worse thing is for government to choose winners and losers and do things designed to help what it defines as losers become winners. It isn't an appropriate goal for government. For the rich man to give $10 fo the poor man is a good thing because it is a freely made choice.

 

How would taxing religious corporations and their employees/owners the same as any other corporation and its employees/owners violate the First Amendment?

 

The bill of rights applies to government, not the private sector. The private sector can limit speech all it likes. For government to limit private sector speech through the tax code would indeed be a violation of the first amendment.

 

Laying a tax on the free exercise of religion creates an artificial condition to said free exercise; as the power to tax is the power to destroy, said taxation can easily lead to the restriction of the right to freely exercise one's religion.

 

I wouldn't go that far. For the government to collect tax from church revenues is OK. It is an income tax just like everybody deals with. The problem occurs when government uses the tax code to stifle speech. The reason behind a change in the tax code is everything in this case.

 

The problem then comes when the taxation serves to stifle the free exercise of religion; taking the money the church would otherwise use for its free exercise stifles said free exercise.

The power to tax your right to (x) is the power to destroy your right to (x).

 

I disagree. I think it is fine that churches operate tax free. But I don't think a change to tax them stifles anything that it doesn't stifle in any other organization. Operating tax free is a privilege, not a right.

 

But the free exercise of religion is a right.
Anything that abridges that free exercise - like a tax that draws away funds from the function of the religion - violates that right.
And so, churches, etc, operating tax free is not a right, but a consequence of the constitutional protection afforded the right to the free exercise.

 

No, it's a function of the fact that even socialists can't agree on what socialism is.

My demand for a definition of socialism that socialists all agree on is out of context in a thread about the functionality of socialism? Odd. So you're saying the solution to the difficulties associated with regulating capitalism (which I have defined as a description of the behavior of trade, not a government system) is socialism which attempts to regulate trade by some undefinable means?

Good plan.

 

You're confusing value with currency. $10 is worthless if you strip it from the value the $10 represents.

 

Its far worse to use the state to force the rich man to give that $10 to the poor man, because you think its the right thing to do.

 

Capitalism, to my definition, is a description of the behavior of trade. Government is a system to regulate that behavior. You can't conflate the two.

If you have traded something you owned to your neighbor for something he owned, you have engaged in capitalism. If you have traded your labor for a wage, you have engaged in capitalism. If you have combined resources into some new product that you now own, you have engaged in capitalism. Capitalism exists now in America. It exists in Venezuela. It existed in Soviet Russia. It is a description of the mechanisms of trade. It is independent of the attempts to control how those trades are valued, and when they are allowed to take place.

Outcome and intent are not the same thing, are they? You complain about capitalism because it can't be effectively regulated, but you seek to create a system you call socialism that regulates trade. You can't define that system as simply as I can define capitalism because it's too complex, but you want to suggest everyone agrees what it is? Do you not see the problem here?

 

Me. If you impose socialism on America, then I will be a socialist who disagrees with you about what socialism is.

 

It's not a tax on the free or any other exercise of religion.

False. The tax is the same whether anyone exercises a religion or not, so it is not a tax on the exercise of religion. You know this.

Also objectively false. You can tax land all you want, and it will still be there, intact. You are just flat, outright wrong as a matter of objective physical fact.

Flat false, as proved above.

 

It's nothing to do with free speech. The tax is exactly the same whether anyone exercises their right of free speech or not, so it is not a tax on the exercise of free speech.

 

It is, for the reasons given.
You simply saying "false" does nothing to negate the argument before you.

 

No I'm not, you are just makin' $#!+ up. Don't be so ridiculous.

What on earth do you incorrectly imagine you think you might be talking about? Whether the $10 is paper currency, demand deposit money, or simply the market value of a stock, a bond, a house, or a car is completely irrelevant to the point.

 

No reasons were given, only false claims.

Claims advanced without evidence are rightly dismissed without evidence.

 

I did. It was a strawman argument.

Actually, it was more than that. It was a complete and total fabrication. No one, in the world, has ever advanced such a claim.