CrowEpistemologist

Wow you are right, that's totally different.

Actually, as the pedant himself said, the actual numbers in question weren't necessary to make my point. Also, there's an entire thread on this particular topic were all of the detailed numbers were discussed. No reason to side-track this thread into that one.

So I need to pay for somebody else's government protection because their wealth proves they produced more for... society as a whole? How exactly would we measure such value? Also, are you suggesting that the government finance itself by engaging in profit-making businesses? Also, Bill Gates' income is probably negative these days. He has, however, about 500,000 times more wealth than the median American citizen, and I'd submit that, while it might not be a direct proportion, paying thousands of times more than the average seems fair. As we discussed above, one can probably attach a protection price tag to assets, transactions, and possibly income...

Because it's off-topic.

Is reducing taxes on the rich universally good? Based on our discussions here, it would seem that "the rich" (defined in several dimensions) certainly use vastly more government resources than the non-rich, so they should ultimately pay for what they consume, no?

Understanding the full nature of Man--and thus making predictions of how a society of men will interact--is the basis of applied politics. That science must be approached scientifically, rationally, and with a solid metaphysical foundation. Stronger than any science, for it's the unique realm of politics and power that corrupts men partially and absolutely, and wills them to corruption begat by unreason begat by every mystical philosophy from the dawn of history (and the begetting and the begat are often reversed and the two are intertwined in an endless twisted pair). I think Ayn Rand and the preponderance of Objectivsts got it wrong when they predicted how this would play out in reality (insofar as they actually imagined such a reality), but I think the consequences of reason and reality will be better than they imagined. The real enemy of men is corruption, and the weapon against that enemy is reason.

The Nature of Man in the context of building a society must necessary include far more than the mere existence of free will. Sure, you can leave it there and say, "people will just decide to do whatever they decide to do" (and then presumably curl up with a Kafka novel and a glass of vodka), but if we're interested in actually solving a problem in the real world then indeed, we must work to understand the full nature of man, including our estimations how they are likely to act in the future.

Yes, an "evolutionary change in man's nature". Everybody keeps talking past each other here. On one hand, there are people pointing out that unless you get 100% compliance, the voluntary system breaks down and won't work. The response is to the effect of, "but most people are good". "Most" isn't the same as "all". And we're not talking about satanic evil here, we're talking about, "a college kid that doesn't feel like sending money to a 'government thingy' they can't understand and buying more beer instead" or whatnot. Lazy people. People who are assholes. People who hear the word, "selfish" convince themselves that means that they can take advantage of others. People who evade. Common criminals. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. But history can be a guide: can we point to a large-scale, successful society where there was absolutely no compelled taxes (as 2046 alluded to). I have never heard of such a thing, but certainly an example would be illuminating. We'd also have to weigh whatever we see there with any counter-examples we might find, wherein previously illegal activities where made legal (or lawless), and what effect that had in the looting. Certainly my own anecdotal life experience tells me that, in short, lots of people are assholes, and that if we made being an asshole legal, there would be a lot more of them. But I'm willing to hear scientific evidence that contradicts my admittedly anecdotal life experience...

Anyhow, I think in the context of this world we live in, the answer to this thread's question is, in a word, yes. I think Objectivists are better focused on corruption rather than taxes as such. Flat taxes are better than "bumpy" taxes that give out special favors to various groups, for instance. Taxes should try to be roughly connected to one's net service receipt from the government's protection, for instance. Sales tax (or transaction tax), for instance, is roughly connected to people's use of the court system and some police and things like the FBI. Presumably if you transact more, you are using these services more. Property tax is connected to people's use of the military (i.e. protecting everybody's property). The more valuable your property, the more there is to protect. Here "property" is used in the broadest sense, e.g. your bank accounts and stock portfolio, etc. Income tax? Is there a case to be made for income tax? It wouldn't seem like it. Seems like there's a transaction there though, but it doesn't seem like that activity is anywhere near having the most impact. Maybe a very low tax associated with the transaction of the payment to a person. Other direct use taxes (parks, passports, immigration, etc.) can be very valid. But all this is to say that it's important not to play the role of "crazy person" when you join the typical conversation of what we should do. We need to solve problems in this world and we should arguably be good at that. We have reason, and lack the religious baggage that imputes an inherent evil on any particular class (i.e. HOTGFBG). We can rifle through sophistry and populism like no other. Objectivism applied to this world is powerful indeed.

Personally I think there's no way around compelled taxation at least in some form. I'm open to ideas though.

Nope, not everyone, just a some people. That's all it takes for the entire "volunteer" system to come crashing down. Anyhow, the solution you brought up above is a valid one, as long as you don't mind a world where some people will have zero protection of their rights. In other words, if you don't pay the taxes usage fees to the local police, it's open season on your home and person and you have absolutely no legal recourse when you are robbed. Also, how would you propose the US military only protect some of the citizens here and not others? How would that actually work?

We all went over this carefully in another thread about the cost of an "ideal" government. It all adds up. I suppose we can all hope for a future world where there's no crime, but I said the modern world that has a lot of bad things in it. Regardless, even a tiny percentage would be a mountain of money if only a tiny few had got stuck paying for it. All I need to make my point is for the number has to be non-zero. Blanking-out on this problem and envisioning a crime-free, bad-guy-free fantasy world doesn't make the problem go away. That is, if your goal is to try to understand how Objectivism applies to the real world... It's not everybody's goal...

I too have never been presented with a compelling argument that people would pay for a necessary government they aren't compelled to pay for. Everything I've ever observed about human nature says that many, many people won't, and this would force the ones who do pay to pay a lot more, causing them to be even less enthusiastic about paying, and that this entire effect would snowball. And in the modern world where upwards of 20% of our GDP absolutely must be devoted to defense and police and so forth, it's not valid to say that it would be so cheap as to not trouble anybody.

What strikes me as delusional is that you seem to think you magically know what was going on in these killer's heads--and that it was all the same (one-dimensional) thought every single time. But good progress though. You used the word, "largely" to modify your stance somewhat. Keep going. Keep digging into the facts to reveal a large number of factors, political, social, psychological, economic, etc.--and yes, religious. Then you'll find the situation complicated, and the solution even more so. But the great news is that you'll be less frustrated by the response you see by the authorities who are actually charged with protecting our rights and lives, because you'll see a lot more of why they do what they do.

When I say, "virtually all" I suppose I mean about 99.9%. That leaves 1,000,000 of my Jihadi FriendsTM. I doubt I actually have that many such "friends" though. Since other crimes like murder and rape are about 100,000 times more dangerous to Americans right now, we should absolutely not wait until the criminals commit a crime and kill them before the do. Its the only way to be sure. Most likely if you are a Muslim, you are probably a terrorist, or at least you have a much higher propensity to be one (see above). Of course by these statistics we should also jail every single gun owner in the US, since there's a higher percentage of them committing a crime and also a much more pressing danger to US citizens from "those people". Or, I don't know, maybe we can drop the hysteria and look at terrorism as yet another criminal matter, and prioritize it as such. You know, like the above linked article suggested...

From that article: "Overblown threat Some analysts believe that we are only marginally safer now than we were before, if at all, because the threat of terrorism was extremely low in the first place. The 9/11 attack, they say, was a statistical outlier. The protocols put in place since guard against worst-case scenarios, and energy should instead be spent on more imminent threats. John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University who has written several prize-winning books on the fight against terrorism, said that each of us has a 1-in-3.5 million chance of getting killed in a terrorist attack each year, and that such a low probability is extremely difficult to further reduce. After all, no amount of effort will ever reduce the chances all the way to zero. Meanwhile, the danger of other types of violent crimes is much higher; we have a 1 in 2,000 chance of getting murdered in any given year, for example. Mueller argues that excessive federal spending on counterterrorism has detracted from efforts to fight and prevent other violent crimes. "Law enforcement officers, especially the FBI, were pulled away from dealing with ordinary crime to focus very heavily on terrorism," Mueller said. "Terrorism is a very small risk, and so the fact that we're spending money on that instead of crime, which actually does happen, means that [we're not maximizing our safety] as much as we otherwise would be." Do you even read what you link to? Strike two... Also, I don't think "straw man" means what you think it means... You understand that "news" story on Fox News about isolated Muslim communities in Europe (operating under strict Sharia law) was... complete bullshit, right? Complete made-up crap to make idiots feel more afraid and more hysterical? I think we should hunt down and kill terrorists (insofar as we reasonably can). Not all Muslims are terrorists. In fact virtually all of them aren't. Anyhow, me and my Jihadi FriendsTM are off to bed...

So law enforcement is being restricted from... violating the rights of the innocent? This is a problem how exactly? From that article: " The new rules, however, “won’t apply to screening at borders and airports, where Department of Homeland Security personnel have long given extra scrutiny to people from certain countries,” Not exactly a suicide pact. Sounds more like sensible policy to me. Also, do you have an data to back up that claim that the welfare state makes people poorer? I mean, it violates my rights and forces me to pay for people I don't want to pay for, but that doesn't mean it causes poorness any more than it causes blindness or scurvy.

The "script" is the epistemological enemy of our day--and far more dangerous than any mere political or military enemy. Another word for it is a "narrative" in which people can hear information that fits into their wider assumptions and they believe it regardless of knowing the facts, or even if it makes no logical sense on the face of it. It's true because it has to be true based on a widely accepted generalization (which in turn is usually driven by emotion and/or partisan politics). Ayn Rand in the course of her works made thousands of generalized assessments of the state of things social and political. Were they all correct? Are they all still relevant? No script is going to tell you which is which.

Where are there "more restrictions placed on local law enforcement"? Regardless, if your goal is to turn on-edge people into gun-toting crazies, a draconian police force is a great way to do it. Anyhow, my point was that a population of religious crazies living on the dole are a lot less dangerous than a population of religious crazies who are up against the extreme effects of poverty. Maybe socialism is the opiate of extreme religion?

I don't think a computerized banking system changes that one way or another. The cleptocracies of Africa are doing just fine the old fashioned way. Technology will change the rules for them, but the overall risk is probably about the same.

It's a case for the European welfare state, that's for sure...

I think it will help, actually. This is basic infrastructure which we take for granted here coming to people who don't have it. It will absolutely cause a lot of new problems though, and corrupt governments are going to mess things up in a lot of ways. But in aggregate, I think it will help. Hundreds of millions of people gaining a bank account and trading with money can only be a good thing in the long run.

Am I the only one astonished by how small this community is? These days there are upwards of ~1B people on the internet, yet there are, by my counting, approximately 2 internet forums solely dedicated to Ayn Rand's ideas, and this one is clearly the more "serious" of the two. Really? Is what we talk about really that esoteric?

You should approach this forum like you approach everything: by keeping in mind what's in it for you. I learn a lot here, and it helps me in my life. End of story. Trying to draw any deeper meaning out of a BS session like the one here is folly. Oh, and the real world is not an Ayn Rand novel: 1000:1 idiots to rational people is generous. More like 100,000:1 in my experience. Now does that have implications about the foundational generalized observations on human nature we've used to envision a perfect society? Different thread entirely...

Uh huh. We couldn't deal with a 20-30 million of them in Iraq. What makes you think we can wipe out 1 billion of them? I personally don't want to pick up the tab for another trillion dollar war thank you very much. Anyhow, 3 posts to answer my one... all with different bizarre messages... party on dude....