Principled stances on taxation:
- “Taking property is theft!” (Anarcho-Capitalism)
- “Claiming you own property is theft” (Anarcho-Communism)
- “Taking property is theft, but acceptable for the Greater Good” (Various consequentialists)
Unprincipled stances on taxation:
- “You CAN own property but taking it isn’t theft because of a Social Contract that you never agreed to.” (Unprincipled capitalists, e.g. most modern ideologies)
- “Claiming you own property is theft, but if you use the car that Comrade Iosef drives, the police will get you even though it isn’t Comrade Iosef’s car” (Unprincipled communists, i.e: “communists.”)
Tag yrself I’m a principled consequentialist.
This is… So silly. If the consequentialist position sounds wildly different from the “unprincipled capitalist” position then you really need to choose a completely different word than “theft” in all of the above, because you’re COMPLETELY failing to express what you’re trying to say by it.
There are important differences in the behavior of politicians who believe the one compared to politicians who believe the other.
One approach realizes that when you tax people, you hurt people. When you have the power to impose VAT on food items while children go hungry to bed, you have the power to hurt people. That is a grave responsibility, and should only be exercised when your taxation scheme helps people more than it hurts starving children.
The other approach, which I see too often, goes
Lol I want to signal that I am cultured, let’s fund the Royal Theatre by taxing important goods! Wait, there are starving kids in our country now how did that happen? Let’s tax luxury goods to help the kids. Poor alcoholics can no longer afford homes? Let’s tax cars exorbitantly. People die because they don’t replace old cars that don’t have the newest safety features? Let’s make those mandatory! Poor people can no longer afford to drive at all now? Well sucks to be poor I guess but cars aren’t a necessity.
What, you feel taxes are unjust? They’re the price you pay to live in civilization! Without them we wouldn’t have great things like the Royal Theatre but only the art that people like enough to pay money for without being forced to and that would be terrible.
I realize this isn’t primarily about mandatory art, but nonetheless mandatory art is the worst.
ugh that thing
that exact thing
one politician around here (from the Party Formerly Known as the Communist Party) has written an excellent piece on how “criminal law isn’t a list of facebook likes” and I just want to live somewhere where the government budget isn’t treated as a list of facebook likes either
(via ilzolende)
2 weeks ago · tagged #this is a social democracy hateblog #i'm only angry at the left because i care about the poor · 133 notes · source: shieldfoss · .permalink
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alexanderrm reblogged this from argumate and added:Imagine if in 500 years memes are seen as old and cultured and people fund official meme institutes with tax dollars...
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metagorgon reblogged this from socialjusticemunchkin and added:oh my godfacebook likesthat is so aptbills are all “like if you think children should be protected, ignore if you hate...
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socialjusticemunchkin reblogged this from ilzolende and added:ugh that thingthat exact thingone politician around here (from the Party Formerly Known as the Communist Party) has...
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argumate reblogged this from ilzolende and added:Did you mean: mandatory memes
ilzolende reblogged this from shieldfoss and added:I realize this isn’t primarily about mandatory art, but nonetheless mandatory art is the worst.
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nentuaby reblogged this from michaelblume and added:This is… So silly. If the consequentialist position sounds wildly different from the “unprincipled capitalist” position...
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michaelblume reblogged this from sinesalvatorem- placid-platypus reblogged this from sinesalvatorem and added:
I go with “Claiming you own property is theft but acceptable for the Greater Good.”
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brin-bellway liked this- anotherpersonhasclaimedthisus said: I mean even if you discovered these universals people would still complain about their illegitimacy. Games these days have “artificial difficulty” after all.
slartibartfastibast reblogged this from neoliberalism-nightly and added:“Again this is sneaking in a concept of morality as an actual physical thing that can be discovered as facts about the...
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sinesalvatorem reblogged this from shieldfoss and added:Tag yrself I’m a principled consequentialist.
neoliberalism-nightly reblogged this from argumate and added:I mean if that’s your claim then you should just said earlier. I don’t see how it is sneaking stuff in since you have to...
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