2,193 karma · joined June 30, 2009
p.s.: for readers - see what Milton Friedman had to say on the very topic, to a person that seems very much on the same level as some of the contributors to this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRpEV2tmYz4
Your conflation of income and inheritance tax is disingenuous.
My crown argument against inheritance tax is that the property being inherited has already been taxed before.
Another would be that taxing inheritance destroys capital base, which no society really wants.
Third would be that governments are really bad at managing capital. There are plenty of issues in the nordic models, where there are already signs that their massive welfare states are going to implode in the next couple of decades.
p.s.: How is me remarking that you have poorly thought out positions an ad-hominem?
Thus I owe it to them to keep fighting the government creep towards authoritarian totalitarianism.
What have your forefathers been doing that you are now arguing that 100% of what I have earned and paid taxes on already, should get taxed again at some later date - as a punishment for me not spending it all?
I don't care what people do with their property out of their own free will.
I do care when people are trying to instate authoritarian totalitarian governments.
I oppose inheritance tax - as that inheritance has already been taxed at least once.
I have plenty of good solid arguments on my side.
And I would advise you to put a bit more thinking into your ideas.
Sound fair?
I have no interest in living in your dream world of justice. As it would have been a totalitarian nightmare where everybody would be worse off.
A case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmji36q8E4o
That is called narcissism.
From my anecdotal experience it is too often people who are themselves near or at 1% trying to justify how the "rich" are taking something away from them.
Thomas Sowell debating policies of the last 40 years, back in 1982, it is quite interesting to see how those have turned out pretty much as he predicted and indeed even the arguments of the proponents have gone in the exactly the same direction.
Do you have any sources on that? The causality is not obvious.
Slavery was horrible. And American people fought a bloody war so it could be abolished.
All I am doing is I am setting some perspective. As some people on the left engage in fallacy that every single white person owes them something because some of their ancestors may have been slaves.
Slave population in 1860 was 12%, 65% was for a single state, that was an outlier.
The implication is that liberals are engaging in soft bigotry of low expectations. That they are pandering to black voters for power.
Another implication is that all the things that liberals are promising to the minorities that should be helping black people, such as welfare and affirmative action, end up causing more harm in the long run.
Of course, I expect you to ask why? I would say one part lust for power, one part good intentions that pave road to hell and one part good old fashioned ignorance.
And if you ask about motive? Just a power grab. In contemporary culture diversity is much relished. But not all of it, diversity of opinion is being shunned and anybody daring to show doubt is ostracized. If you take a long hard look - pretty much all the power structures on the west are very, very liberal/progressive (entertainment, media, school system, government and indeed politics).
Since the consensus is that expanding government outreach and bringing more and more functions of society is a good thing and since the results are really not there - the liberals would either have to face their folly or instead keep doubling down.
And since doubling down makes things worse - the liberals are becoming increasingly authoritarian, thus the vicious cycle is feeding itself.
p.s.: In case you were asking what the motive of BLM is? I don't think they have one. Just as any other flavor of identity politics they are engaging in an us vs them discourse, which inevitably will cause them to turn on themselves. But liberals are going to squeeze as much out of them as possible.
There were 1bn people in 1800, there are 7bn today.
Facts don't care about your feelings.
"Only" 300.000 black people have been brought to US as slaves. Less than 5% of American families owned slaves.
Also to put things into perspective - between 1MM and 1.3MM white Europeans have been enslaved by Arabs.
What has been done to Native Americans is horrible. Slavery is horrible.
But I have no idea what any of that has to do with the fact that United States is really a one-of the kind country in the world.
I think that Americans should take a long hard look at all the problems on their plate, but they should really stop falling for snake oil peddlers who are selling Identity Politics and trying to benefit from pitting communities against each other.
I would love to link Huffpo, Salon or Atlantic, but they are just to dishonest to publish something like this.
Where I live, police are reasonable and populace is unarmed.
On the other hand US is on of a few modern republics that hasn't produced a tyranny yet. And perhaps 2nd amendment may have something to do with that. Along with rest of the constitution.
Half of people killed by police are white. Blacks are 25%.
Blacks are also disproportionally represented amongst violent offenders.
One more interesting trivia - black and hispanic cops are more likely to shoot a black suspect than white cops.
Black people are 13% of US population, yet black men (6% of US population) commit 50% of homicides in the US.
Thus your assumptions are incorrect and thus your conclusions may also be incorrect. It appears that white people are more afraid of being called racist than being assaulted by a person of color.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/7264/5-statistics-you-need-kno... http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-on-race... http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/28/5-devasta...
However our political landscape is polarized to a degree where minority coalition has no chance of doing anything.
Not that any political problem could solve people acting as idiots.
And then that party proceeds to blackmail everybody all the time.
Thus all the governments need to pander to this particular party and they get to gridlock the government whenever they feel the smallest slight or displeasure.
One day looking at women is rape. The other day mobs assaulting women in a Taharrush is blowing things out of proportion.
On the order of 1000 women got assaulted. One person got sentenced thus far, to the best of my knowledge - and he is indeed a "fresh immigrant".
You have absolutely no basis for your claims.
Except for upkeeping Bretton Woods, which you know is the accord that made US guarantee safe naval trade routes for everyone in the world.
But yeh, beyond that and perhaps upkeeping Pax Americana it is not really used or useful for anythings else.
Eventually when Pax Americana runs its course people are going to see what the US military was good for.
Powell was acting on good faith. His post-festum testimonials indicate that he was suspicious of the intel and had expressed his discomfort - to which he had been repeatedly re-assured by the people in charge of intel that intel was good.
Thus your claim that "Bush government was looking for any excuse" is wrong - as Powell himself has been a major part of Bush government.
Implying that Powell has been a victim of conspiracy is quite a bit of a conspiracy theory in itself. He might have been lied to due to corruption - or "just" due to incompetence.
What I am trying to argue here is - that somebody, somewhere should start an inquiry on how it was possible that Powell has been fed bad information. If there was a conspiracy - the perpetrators should be indicted for treason. If the reason is incompetence (which is a worse option IMO) - then a major overhaul of the intelligence agencies would be in order.
I do understand that the pragmatic option for numerous reasons has been to just "forget" about it - that may not be the best long term solution.
There is a lot more to the man. He seems a simpleton on the face of it. He thrives on people underestimating him.
Yet everything points towards him being an excellent player of the "Game of Thrones".
Whether you think him an idiot or not - he is one of the best strategists I have ever seen.
Also that is what your github account is for.
With insane variances between the teams offcourse.