Ninth Doctor

I don't know about fines, what they did was deny regulatory approval for interstate mergers unless you were CRA friendly. In Sowell's book there's a chilling quote from Janet Reno about it.

From OP: This means that under a voluntary model tied to services whatever income is produced from the legal system side has to cover the cost of the other two functions. Therefore, the prices that must be charged for the voluntary services can’t, in principle, compete with free market alternatives. From Rand (see my second post): Then, on that basis, one can proceed to devise the appropriate means of tying government revenues directly to the government services rendered. How do you directly tie national defense “services” to revenues? I wrote about police already, where fines are a possibility, but they bring in a conflict of interest problem. Am I right that you believe there is a workable system just waiting to be implemented, and lack of will engendered by a culture of dependency on Government handouts prevents it from finding support? I will absolutely concede that there are certain deranged college professors who would react this way if a workable system were proposed, but I don’t believe it goes much further. Huh? I think “the people” would be lining up to agree to it with wild enthusiasm. All I found on Warren was a critique by Murray Rothbard, and not enough for me to comment on. For the Smith I need a better citation, my pages 801-803 talk about clergy privileges. Book number, part number? I know a little about the old Icelandic democracy, but not about how they collected resources for defense etc. Do you have a reference? Who did they have to defend against anyway, Vikings? I’d like to suggest that any system, to be judged workable, needs to be applicable not just to the USA of 2011, idealized to remove our foreign adventures (er, commitments) but, say, Prussia during the Seven Years War. So, enemies on all sides, what does the Government do? Hold a lottery? Why should the government be specifically in the gambling business? As opposed to any other business. Why not cattle ranching? You’ve completely ignored my argument.

The CRA was Carter, not Clinton. BTW Thomas Sowell's book on the housing boom and bust is a must read.

Scary implications there. You didn’t pay for your rape kit last time, you Alaskan hussy! Your 911 privileges are revoked. Anyway, there are fines of course, but they’re properly assessed against the perp, not the victim. If you're saying police should be funded via fines, don't you see a problem there? A conflict of interest? Like community service for drunk drivers? Or are we talking Jean Valjean and Solzhenitsyn material here? I don’t like the idea of the Government having gulags to send people to. I assume that crooks are going to get into office from now until the end of time, so keep those predators declawed. I hope to maintain a respectful tone on this thread, so I’m going to put it like this: like me, you have a vivid imagination. I can picture something like the annual fund drive for public television: Call in by the end of the hour and your contribution will be matched by Warren Buffet, and the budget for new cruise missiles will be met for all of 2012! Having worked in the tax field for lots of years now, I find the notion comical. You know that in the Middle Ages they used to collect the tithe by force? It’s supposed to be your contribution to God, yadda yadda yadda, but when it’s 10% of your product and you’re living in a mud hut slurping pottage, you’re liable to lynch the pastor if he doesn’t come by to collect with an armed escort. Indeed, I’m all with you there. This will take us off on a tangent, I’m afraid. One of the points I always bring up (eventually) when discussing politics is my solution to Government corruption: a Government with no favors to bestow. But there’s a corollary: a Government no one who is ambitious cares to be elected to, or work for. So, poll tax gets the shoulder shrug from me. One other thing though, you say people would have to pay a percentage of their income? Um, implications? What happens if I lie, is there going to be an audit? Who’s going to do that audit? Train of thought? It amounts to a point by point critique of Rand’s essay. She claims that her job is only to demonstrate that a system of voluntary taxation is “practicable”. I go through her attempts to show it, and conclude by pointing out a basic flaw. I didn’t say either of those things. I hadn’t seen that thread before. It’s a long one, this will take time. From the thread title and the opening post it looks like the argument is that taxation is moral, and I haven’t said that. I think you can glean my view on that from the last paragraph of the first post.

I'm afraid I snipped the last Rand quote, here goes again: In order fully to translate into practice the American concept of the government as a servant of the citizens, one has to regard the government as a paid servant. Then, on that basis, one can proceed to devise the appropriate means of tying government revenues directly to the government services rendered. That's all I have time for now, I'll unpack it later if need be.

A month ago on the “closed system” thread, faced with the claim that Objectivism is “a system of interconnected principles which are immutable, which cannot tolerate any contradiction, otherwise the whole system is collapsed”, I countered with two points that I thought amounted to reductio ad absurdum. The first concerned Rand’s definition of Art, and perhaps we can have another thread for that. The second concerned voluntary taxation, I wrote: To my surprise, the only reply I got embraced the absurdum with both arms. All I could say was “Wow”. Then today I was looking through the “Why eliminate controls gradually” thread and find the tenor of the discussion hovers on the premise that taxation could end if enough people just agreed to eliminate it. A bit about me, I’m a CPA, and I have a Master’s degree in Taxation. I remember mentioning this to Andrew Bernstein once, and he sort of squinted at me suspiciously, until I said “if I told you I was studying psychology would you assume I was in favor of mental illness?” Study of tax policy and its history plays a fairly minimal role in earning such a degree (one course, in my case), instead you learn about legal research and procedure, and then there are courses on each of the main branches of tax: corporate, estate, partnership and so on. How taxation worked in the Roman Empire or feudal Europe is barely touched on, but after an independent study of history I feel confident about making general statements on the matter. Following are some passages from Rand’s article, Government Financing in a Free Society, in The Virtue of Selfishness: In a fully free society, taxation—or, to be exact, payment for governmental services—would be voluntary. Since the proper services of a government—the police, the armed forces, the law courts—are demonstrably needed by individual citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance. The question of how to implement the principle of voluntary government financing—how to determine the best means of applying it in practice—is a very complex one and belongs to the field of the philosophy of law. The task of political philosophy is only to establish the nature of the principle and to demonstrate that it is practicable. Please note the last sentence, she is claiming that voluntary government financing is practicable, and implies that she will show that it is. One might go so far as to say she hasn’t grounded her theory of Government until she has. But does she do this? I say no, and I’m going to critique each of the specific “suggestions” she offers. But first, a general observation: compulsory taxation has been a feature of every Government in recorded history. If you know of a contrary example, please share. The most enlightened rulers in history have lowered taxes, or reformed the means and bases of taxation, however, over thousands of years of recorded history no system of voluntary taxation has yet been invented. Is this for lack of will? Taxation has always been one of the principle causes of political unrest, wouldn’t the ruler with a truly innovative, henceforth pain-free way of financing the functions of Government be swept into office or onto the throne? I don’t think I’m engaging in hyperbole when I say, pardon some cribbin’ from Edward Gibbon, the invention of such a system would be a “singular event in the history of the human mind”. I’m of the view that it can’t be done, and if this makes me the last devotee of Ptolemy before the Copernican revolution, I’ll be happy to wear posterity’s dunce cap. The closest example I know of is the United States under the Articles of Confederation. Pre-Constitution, the federal government didn’t have the power to impose taxes, and following the Revolution the soldiers went unpaid. Robert Morris, who had fronted their pay out of his own pocket, expected to be paid back. Requests were made to the states, and the money didn’t materialize. The unrest this caused, possibly orchestrated by him, was a factor leading to the replacement of the Articles of Confederation by the Constitution, under which the federal government does have the power to tax. We easily could have had a second revolution instead. Back to Rand: The choice of a specific method of implementation is more than premature today—since the principle will be practicable only in a fully free society, a society whose government has been constitutionally reduced to its proper, basic functions. There’s a glaring chicken vs. egg paradox (contradiction?) here, how can the society be fully free if compulsory taxation is still in place? What’s worse, she doesn’t indicate why the implementation of a new form of Government financing must come so much later. From there she moves on to her three “illustrations”, a lottery, a stamp tax, and insurance on credit transactions. The problem with a lottery is obvious, how would the Government’s lottery compete with private gambling? Is there any reason to think Government sponsored gambling will have a competitive advantage? Granted some people voluntarily accept a lower return on war bonds, but how many gaming tickets will patriotism sell in peacetime? One may as well suggest the Government engage in any other kind of business, say, pornography or prostitution or raising chickens. Rather than belaboring the point (by all means, it can be discussed further), I conclude that without a ban on private gaming, this idea is a nonstarter. Next, the stamp tax. She doesn’t call it that of course, but she describes a system where contracts have to registered (including a fee) with the state in order to be later enforced by the courts. She allows that this registration is optional. I don’t believe it takes much imagination to visualize a system similar to our current credit rating bureaus (or Dun & Bradstreet or even the Better Business Bureau) that could compete with the Government in providing private arbitration. The Government’s advantage is the ability to initiate force, but a bad mark with D&B could easily put your opponent out of business without the Sheriff coming to padlock the door. It’s all a matter of cost, if a private system is more economical, naturally the Government’s fee revenue is going to dry up. Finally, there’s insurance on credit transactions. The argument against the stamp tax applies here mutatis mutandis, and is even easier to visualize since the system is already in place. It’s rare for credit card companies to sue for nonpayment, since borrowers can avail themselves of bankruptcy and the cost of litigation is typically more than is worth the lender’s while to pursue. So, deadbeats get bad credit records, then no one will extend them credit; that’s the way the system works, and Government’s role nowadays is mostly to hamper this system (see Fair Credit Reporting Act etc.). In her presentation of this idea, Rand adds the (chilling?) observation that the current system amounts to a “subsidy” from the Government; given that the banks involved pay taxes under the present system (corporate tax, etc.), one wonders why she put in this hint that something unfair is currently going on. Is there a fundamental reason why voluntary taxation can’t work? I see a common problem running through each of Rand’s illustrations. I’m happy to concede, for the sake of argument, that the legal system can be self supporting. The trouble is that police and especially armed forces can’t be. This means that under a voluntary model tied to services whatever income is produced from the legal system side has to cover the cost of the other two functions. Therefore, the prices that must be charged for the voluntary services can’t, in principle, compete with free market alternatives. Wrapping up, here’s Rand again: In order fully to translate into practice the American concept of the government as a servant of the citizens, one has to regard the government as a paid servant. And to add my own view: one must recognize (and reconcile?) the paradox that even “good” government sustains itself by coercive means, and these means have to be maintained under carefully defined controls and limitations. “Eternal vigilance”, “a republic if you can keep it”, etc.

You ought to cite the chapter. Page number would be good too, but people have different editions so be sure to note the chapter too.

It might be worth looking into precedents, and a really good one is the career of Turgot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne-Robert-Jacques_Turgot,_Baron_de_Laune He did a lot of the right things, but made too many enemies along the way. Did he do too much too fast? Impossible to say.

TAS has a good article on this by Roger Donway. http://www.atlassociety.org/brc/preet-bharara-raj-rajaratnam-case

Sounds like we're in agreement. Sounds like a subject for another thread. My immediate reaction is complete disagreement, but your wording "get very wrapped up in" is awfully slippery. Some falsehoods reward close examination, others don't.

You didn’t mention anything about that before. Beats me, I was only talking about having a dialogue with a communist. It’s good to have opposition for testing out your arguments. Your friend's starting to sound like a real fruitcake. Let me put it to you this way. My family is mostly yellow dogs, and as you can see I’m a salt and pepper. But we’re stuck with each other, so we don’t talk politics or philosophy. I gather your friend is someone you can be friends with without discussing philosophy. If that works, great. When or if it stops working, then that’s that.

All for...this? I don't hear her singing out of my hymnal. Good thing, too.

I think it’s good to have friends with opposing viewpoints, and since consistent communists are atheists, you’re not going to run into that brick wall called faith. This relationship ought to give you an opportunity to deepen your own understanding of philosophy; one can learn a lot through teaching and the back and forth of debate. This of course assumes that he doesn't steal from you, then justify himself as P.G. Wodehouse's Psmith does: "Merely practical Socialism. Other people are content to talk about the Redistribution of Property. I go out and do it."

I don’t understand, whose (what) answer? Are you saying France isn’t socialist? Then how about Sweden? The OP wrote socialist, he didn’t specify totalitarian communist, and even if he did he would still have been wrong. If he’d limited his claim to China I wouldn’t have replied, not being knowledgeable enough about its situation. I don’t know whether this is true or not, and I don’t see the relevance. Moscow’s system reportedly has the highest ridership in the world, if that doesn’t count as evidence against the OP’s case, I give up. This makes me think of an anecdote, I’m not sure if it comes from Rand or where else I read it. It concerns the movie The Grapes of Wrath with Henry Fonda. Supposedly when it was shown in the USSR the people were incredulous. Not about the horrible poverty it depicts in the US, but about the fact that this destitute family owned a truck that they could drive from Oklahoma to California after their crops failed. It makes sense that socialist countries would have large mass transit systems (public property), and fewer cars (private property).

I don’t understand why you’re trying to start a conversation about it if you feel it was a waste. It’s a memorable story, but “I prefer not to” reread it. Easier to finish than Moby Dick, that’s for sure.

I think you’re as wrong as can be. The Moscow subway is reportedly the best in the world, and was built under Communism. Now, we need to define what is meant by “socialist state” to carry this further, since you only use one example, China. Is France a socialist state? Particularly the France that built the Paris Metro? I think so, and I’ve ridden it and can attest that it works like a charm, the best system I've seen (I haven't made it to Moscow). I’ve been all over Europe and the mass transit there works, in every case as well as if not better than the New York City system. You say “the State assigns nearby housing”, but even in totalitarian regimes that’s not true in the cities, not nearby enough that there’s no need for a subway. Only the higher ups are able to live that close to work. I’m a bit confused, though. You say “subway”, then you say “non-local mass transit”. Which is it? Is it someone commuting from Brooklyn to Manhattan for work every day? Or taking the chunnel from London to Paris for a weekend?

Come gather round people come and join your hands we're taking Wall Street and we're making demands and we're heeding the call and we're crying for help only 1% of us have wealth but first we need posters we need to make signs but to do so it seems that we need some supplies We need poster board I can't make it myself but it's 10 cents a sheet at the store it's on sale an example of economies of scale it's so evil They're saying that freedom has done little to stop Corporations from keeping the wealth at the top But at what point in history would a kid and a king both have clean water to drink? George Washington was the richest man of his age But he lost all his teeth at a very young age Because they didn't have Scope and they all crapped in trays we're not wealthy? now there's fountains on streets from which clean water pours Four dollar generics at all big box stores a sultan and student both have iPhone 4s it's not fair Come gather young people come on everyone and I'll tell you a tale of a fortunate son He's born in a country and given vaccine and rendered immune to all kinds of disease the Kardashians are on all his TVs it's not perfect Banks don't need bailouts on that we agree so let's start up a group and let's take to the streets because if we do that then you know what that means we're racist.

You seem very certain that this client can’t manage the needed budget, but is your certainty justified? Your manager may know better than you do, maybe he’s turned one of these prospects into a regular customer at some point in the past. Aren’t your services worth the price? Don’t they pay off in higher revenue for the client? Where I’m puzzled most is by the phrase “ordered us to sell him”. Can’t the client tell on his own that the service isn’t worth his money? You seem to equate selling to stealing. Of course I can’t tell from what facts you’ve presented, and I’m reading into what little you’ve offered. I’ve had the experience of managing hard-headed newbies who think they know a business after too short a time, and you sound like one to me. So, take it or leave it, if the shoe fits…insert appropriate cliché to taste.

Hicks has a YouTube channel too. http://www.youtube.c.../CEEChannel#p/u

Give this a try. It's just an anecdote, but it speaks to your question. http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=22285&view=findpost&p=280538

I thought the first episode was really good. Here’s Ken Burns in mid-season form. It went through the passage of the 18th amendment, so expect Al Capone etc. to star in the next episode (tonight). There were so many parallels to today, just too many to go into quickly. One data point that came out near the end was the fact that 1/5th of the economy and a huge source of tax revenues was outlawed in one fell swoop. None of the talking heads drew a comparison to socialized medicine, but that’s what I thought of.

I like watching Olbermann. As comrade Jeeves once said, “it is as well to know exactly what tunes the devil is playing.”

Looks like this’ll be worth watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov-9-XVurmw

Instead of the "Madre Hill Rule" they should call it the "Harrison Bergeron Rule".

Here's a few funny lines you can use on him: http://www.joketribe...up%20Lines.html