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Comment by jedmeyers | Hacker News Reader

> I think taxes matter for justice and equality.

There is nothing inherently just or equal about coming with guns to people and taking a percentage of their earned resources.

> I love tax policy on HN, because it really brings out of the woodwork people who do care about what's good for the country, and people who don't.

And I love it because it brings out holier-than-thou virtue signalers, who think that they know better than everyone how to spend other people's resources, while denigrating their contributions.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. "Caring about what's good for the country" is not nearly enough to be able to bring positive change even to a subset of people in the country. But it does bring some virtual internet points, I concede that.

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Would you please not post ideological battle comments or flamewar comments to HN? This is what we're trying to avoid here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>There is nothing inherently just or equal about coming with guns to people and taking a percentage of their earned resources.

There's nothing just about people believing they "earned" those resources by their hard work alone, and not understanding that there were huge infrastructure costs that enabled them not just to do the work and earn money, but even to stay alive -- and that they have to pay to sustain it.

From the roads their cars (and they suppliers and customers cars) drive on, to the airports, to the government funded internet (from the research of ARPANET, to CERN (www), to the trillions spent subsidizing telcos), to the primary schools and high schools they went to, to the fire department that helps them to avoid burning when their houses catch fire, from the FDA and relevant law enforcement that helps them avoid dying from the first crook wanting to sell crap as food or medicine, to the contract laws and their enforcement that help them stay in business, to the criminal laws and their enforcement that protect them from being at the mercy of anyone who'd fancy killing them, from the military that prevents them from being the subjects or prisoners or sex slaves of some foreign power that wanted to expand, and on and on...

It would only be _just_ their "earned resources" if they made them in the jungle, hunting or growing their food alone.

It might be a two-sided transaction, but we don't really have a choice, do we?

If we knew then what we know now, maybe people wouldn't have wanted the government to subsidize the automobile by creating our road system's infrastructure. Hey, maybe people won't even want the internet in another twenty years. And I know for a fact that plenty of people in the US don't appreciate the way law enforcement keeps them "safe". Same for the military.

I find this whole, "let me laundry-list things the government does, many of which it didn't really ask for permission to serve, as a justification for its existence," to be a fairly empty excuse for taxation. I appreciate what I get on some level, but I recognize that the government isn't 100% perfect and that my successes aren't that dependent on, say, my high school guidance counselor.

>It might be a two-sided transaction, but we don't really have a choice, do we?

We don't have a choice with any LAW. It's what the society has decided, with the means the society has to decide things (elections, and so on).

>I find this whole, "let me laundry-list things the government does, many of which it didn't really ask for permission to serve, as a justification for its existence"

That's what elections are for -- and even more so, active participation in politics every day (including with violent protests when it calls for it).

If the population hardly deserves the title of "citizen" (active participant in the politics of the polis), and just casts a vote every 4 years (if that), then they don't get to complain that they pay more taxes than they want, or the government does X which they don't want.

The exception being if there's a tyrannical government, or opaque procedures out of their reach, or the control has been shifted away from their reach and they're e.g. a protectorate (which also can happen).

You are really fast in switching the discussion from “taxes should be used to as a wealth redistribution scheme” to “hey it’s kind of like paying for the resources you might have used”. I am all for paying taxes that fund the public goods, but half of the things you’ve mentioned are not them. And most certainly this is not what’s being advocated by the proponents of the “justice and equity”.

>I am all for paying taxes that fund the public goods, but half of the things you’ve mentioned are not them

Which half exactly?

>And most certainly this is not what’s being advocated by the proponents of the “justice and equity”.

Well, I'm one of the proponents of “justice and equity”, and this is what I'm advocating (among other things). If you make more money, you also take more advantage of these infrastructures (someone who makes $10/hour flipping burgers doesn't depend on those infrastructure as much as someone making millions running a company whose operations crucially depend upon all those things being present).

Can you suggest an alternative way to fix the negative effects of inequality?

Can you describe your desired outcome? Do you want almost everyone to be relatively “equal” like in the late USSR or current North Korea? If not then I guess “inequality” is not the thing you need to look at.

That's why I said fixing the effects of inequality, not necessarily fixing inequality. What I mean by that is things like unequal access to the courts (the average person doesn't have the resources to fight a corporation that wrongs them), problems with campaign finance, and the unavailability of affordable housing in much of the country.

Basically I feel that a person who puts in a reasonable effort (spends 45 to 55 hours a week working, commuting, learning skills, and/or looking for work) should be able to generally live the American Dream which I would define as something along the lines of owning a house, providing for your needs, raising a family, improving yourself, participating in culture, and generally having the freedom to choose your lifestyle.

When I say choose your lifestyle, I don't mean that everyone can become a rockstar or drive a Ferrari. Rather I mean things like: Do I want to live in the city or the country? Is it important to me to live near people that share my religion or culture? Is living near my parents important? Am I a Southerner, a Yankee, or a Texan? Do I want to live the mainstream American lifestyle or be more of a hippy?

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