>> ^Peroxide:

>> ^ridesallyridenc:
He lost me at "raise my taxes."

Taxes are an investment in your country's future.
Do you drive on roads? Did you attend a school? Do you expect the food at the grocery store to be free of E.coli? Do you expect someone to answer and emergency services to respond when you dial 911?
When Americans were paying taxes to a foreign state, or the head of the empire, for their imports and exports, that was when taxes were theft. Think of the Actual Boston Tea Party, they were protesting paying tax to a different nation state.
"Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives." -wiki.
I repeat, their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives.
I personally think your view on taxes says a lot about your ability to empathize with the community within which you reside. Think about employment insurance and programs for the poor. Of course, maybe you live in a gated community out in the suburbs and the poor are forcibly segregated from you.
Of course, I must add that I do think governments must be held accountable for the manner in which they spend/invest the people's wealth. But frankly I'm sick of egocentric, ill informed people decrying the taxes that are necessary for their way of life, and necessary for to sustain the community of humans beings within which they live.
their is some good discussion over here.
http://videosift.com/talk/Taxes-and-theft


News flash. Income tax doesn't pay for roads. Also, I've gotten sick TWICE in the past year from food poisoning. Um, I think during that period of time we still had the FDA, right? And the Supreme Court has upheld in every single case that has been brought to them when police refused or failed to protect the people that the government has zero obligation to protect it's citizens.

Not an investment in the country's future, thank you very much. It's just theft.

Nearly all of the things you mention can and do exist outside of governments. My community has a privatively maintained road. There are private schools of various qualities. And our food is often still subject to large scale contaminations. Just because something isn't done by government doesn't mean it won't. Moreover, when government does do something, it usually means the tools for doing it yourself are outlawed. For example, it is illegal to sell unpasteurized milk products. Even if you are aware of the related health impacts, it is illegal to sell or buy.

Also, you might be aware but are mistaking the fact of the Boston tea party was actually in response to tax break and not a tax itself. The government was essentially acting as an agent of the East India Tea company, in the same way the modern FDA is frequently a tool to dispatch small time competitors with regulatory paperwork.

You seem to be instilled with this idea if you aren't for taxes, then you aren't for poor people, a fallacy of many well meaning liberal types. The problem isn't the support of helping the impoverished, but the means. It would be the same as me telling you to support theology based philanthropy, and ordering by the force of law. The problem of moral issues is they are exactly like the separation of church and state, by making a moral law you force people to agree with this morality. People whom don't subscribe to that line of moral reasoning are FORCED by law to release their funds or face some pretty dire consequences, including jail time.
If you believe in the separation of church and state, then you should also believe in the separation of philanthropy and state...they are essentially the same thing.


>> ^Peroxide:

>> ^ridesallyridenc:
He lost me at "raise my taxes."

Taxes are an investment in your country's future.
Do you drive on roads? Did you attend a school? Do you expect the food at the grocery store to be free of E.coli? Do you expect someone to answer and emergency services to respond when you dial 911?
When Americans were paying taxes to a foreign state, or the head of the empire, for their imports and exports, that was when taxes were theft. Think of the Actual Boston Tea Party, they were protesting paying tax to a different nation state.
"Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives." -wiki.
I repeat, their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives.
I personally think your view on taxes says a lot about your ability to empathize with the community within which you reside. Think about employment insurance and programs for the poor. Of course, maybe you live in a gated community out in the suburbs and the poor are forcibly segregated from you.
Of course, I must add that I do think governments must be held accountable for the manner in which they spend/invest the people's wealth. But frankly I'm sick of egocentric, ill informed people decrying the taxes that are necessary for their way of life, and necessary for to sustain the community of humans beings within which they live.
their is some good discussion over here.
http://videosift.com/talk/Taxes-and-theft

>> ^ridesallyridenc:

He lost me at "raise my taxes."


Taxes are an investment in your country's future.

Do you drive on roads? Did you attend a school? Do you expect the food at the grocery store to be free of E.coli? Do you expect someone to answer and emergency services to respond when you dial 911?

When Americans were paying taxes to a foreign state, or the head of the empire, for their imports and exports, that was when taxes were theft. Think of the Actual Boston Tea Party, they were protesting paying tax to a different nation state.

"Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives." -wiki.

I repeat, their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives.

I personally think your view on taxes says a lot about your ability to empathize with the community within which you reside. Think about employment insurance and programs for the poor. Of course, maybe you live in a gated community out in the suburbs and the poor are forcibly segregated from you.

Of course, I must add that I do think governments must be held accountable for the manner in which they spend/invest the people's wealth. But frankly I'm sick of egocentric, ill informed people decrying the taxes that are necessary for their way of life, and necessary to sustain the community of humans beings within which they live.

their is some good discussion over here.

http://videosift.com/talk/Taxes-and-theft

The greed of the rich and the insanity of the religious fundamentalists is trapping the vast majority of the world in this mad hatter reality where nuclear annihilation seems like a logically consistent inevitability.

That humanity will most likely never socially evolve beyond the concept of nation states seems to me to be the greatest tragedy.

From Wikipedia:

The concept of separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state. The term is an offshoot of the phrase, "wall of separation between church and state," as written in Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists Association in 1802. The original text reads: "...I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."[1] The phrase was quoted by the United States Supreme Court first in 1878, and then in a series of cases starting in 1947. The phrase itself does not appear in the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment to the Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Kinda Relevant

(Sorry for double-post)

Hey again! First off, thanks so much for taking the time to reply even though things are busy for you in RL--I totally understand how that is and hope everything is going fine.

Reading over your post, it occurred to me that there are actually some things we agree on. One thing, for instance, that I think we agree on is that dogma is very, very bad. Blindly following others is never going to lead to a good situation. Forcing others to do things "because that's the way we've always done it" is unlikely to give good results either.

Since I'm pretty sure we agree on this point, let's turn to the point we disagree on. As you said, "does religion bring the good stuff?" The answer to this question I think comes partly from how we're defining religion. If we're going to define religion very narrowly as dogma--a set of prescriptive rules about behavior and practice that everyone must follow--then clearly we answered the question in the last paragraph. Dogma isn't going to bring the good stuff, no. I'm absolutely with you on that.

However, I find such a definition of religion (i.e. religion = dogma) exceedingly narrow and frankly unrealistic. When you look at churches, or temples, or synagogues, or covens, or whatever you see that religion is much more than a set of prescribed rules. All religions are composed of people, and these people interact in very complex ways with both each other, with the religion's leadership, and with whatever religious texts are used. Religion to me, then, is a complex socio-cultural phenomenon. Looking at most churches in the U.S., for example, I don't see a lot of people blindly following the Bible, nor do I see the church leadership encouraging people to blindly follow the Bible (otherwise, I think the death rate from stonings in the U.S. would be much higher than it actually is). What I do see are people coming together to help themselves, help each other, and help their communities, using the Bible as a guide (note I said guide here--I know very few people who base their decisions solely on their religious text; also I chose Christianity for this example, but really you could substitute the religion of your choice there).

Based on these observations, I'm therefore going to quote Daisaku Ikeda, a prominent Buddhist leader. He once said, "Religion exists to serve people; people do not exist to serve religion." My definition of religion therefore is a set of practices that help us grow beyond our own selfish tendencies and serve a greater good. I personally find it irrelevant whether the practices are man-made or divinely inspired so long as they get people to behave more compassionately to each other. To me, that's religion. Anyone who is acting without compassion towards another human being is not following the teachings of their own religion. And any organization that preaches hatred or violence should not be considered a religion at all. If you look at the Bible, or the Koran, or the Buddhist sutras, the overarching message you see is one of love for fellow humankind: the Golden Rule. That is religion and that is what people should be practicing.

Clearly, therefore, I think proper religious practice does bring the good stuff. But can religious practice bring the bad stuff too? Yeah. I'm not denying that. When people choose not to think critically for themselves there will always be someone willing to come along and exploit them. I also think many religious organizations have organized themselves in such a way as to, as you said, be a drain on society and hide behind the banner of religion while carrying out atrocious crimes. But as I said above, I don't really consider the people doing those things as being religious or representing "religion" per se. And as we've talked about in previous posts, I don't think that the existence of such corrupt organizations are entirely religion's fault. If people weren't blindly following their preacher, they'd be blindly following the local village idiot, or blindly their President (or, as in the case of George W. Bush, both). My view on this is that power has a tendency to corrupt; that organizations (whether they be religions, corporations, or nation-states) have a tendency to demand blind obedience; and that there are many people who will willing close their eyes and follow others blindly in order to feel even the smallest sense of security.

In your post, you accused me of downplaying the bad stuff, but I'm going to turn that argument around and suggest that you are in fact downplaying the good stuff that religion has to offer. For every example that you might choose to offer, say the Inquisition or the 9/11 terror attacks, that supposedly show why religion needs to go I can offer you a historical counter-example like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Ghandi as to why religion is crucially important. I think such arguments based on history would end in a draw. But let's go beyond historical arguments. Let's talk about the effect of ordinary people's lives--getting people to donate to charity, volunteer in their communities, help and support each other. What about the drug addicts who find that religion gives them the strength they need to break their addiction, or the prisoners who use the support system religion affords to turn their lives around? Religion inspires ordinary people to lead better, more positive lives much more often than it inspires people to go out and, say, shoot abortion doctors. The problem is, the good stories are too mundane don't make the evening news, so mostly they are anecdotal. The empirical evidence we do have, though, shows religious people live longer, happier, and healthier lives overall.

Sorry for the long post. To sum things up, I do believe that the world needs more religion as I've defined it above. It sounds to me like your main problem with religion is in fact with organized religion and its tendency to steer towards dogma and blind obedience. I actually share your feelings to some extent--as I said above, if an organization is promoting intolerance or hatred, or is imposing its will by force then I think certainly it should be dealt with swiftly and critically. If there's one thing I hope you take away from our discussions on this topic, I suppose it is that religion as a concept is much larger than just organized religion; that it can be immensely healing and an immensely beneficial force in the world. And I would really hope that you would never dismiss someone's views because they happen to be religious. It seems to me that one of the biggest problems facing the world today is that people don't listen to each other--we don't even make the effort to see the other person's point of view.

I, for my part, throughout this dialogue have tried to put myself in your shoes and see things as you do. My goal is not to make you a "religious" person, but simply, I suppose, to further the dialogue a bit and even clarify my own thoughts on the matter by putting them down in words. Thanks for being a willing discussion partner in the process.

So it's an attack on freedom for a Federal Judge to rule that a state amendment violates individual freedoms under the federal constitution? California... Homosexuals... Prayer... Insurance...

Arizona, California, Misouri, Florida... It doesn't matter. There are MANY examples, and the point is Obama's hyocrisy. He selectively chooses to stomp on things he doesn't like, while at the same time he gives free passes to real violations. The Black Panther case was a blatant violation of civil rights - but his administration dismissed it because in thier OPINION black people can't violate the civil rights of others.

The mosque is simply one note in the sad litany of his hypocrisy. He approves the mosque on the basis of limited involvement in city/state government as well as the bill of rights? This comes off as hypocritical to anyone who hears it given his extensive record of ignoring the rights in order to force feed his agenda at national, state, local, and individual levels.

Arizona wants to enforce legitimate laws & protect citizens? Louisiana wants to build sand berms? BP wants to bring in non-union oil skimmers? Texas want to lift my oil drilling ban? It's against the constitution to force people to buy my Obama brand insurance? Banks are refusing to take my TARP money? The people don't want my financial reform bill? The people don't want my Health Care reform bill? The people don't want my Cap & Tax schemes? The people don't want my plan for illegal amnesty? Bah! I'm Barak Hussain Obama and I disallow such freedoms in MY America!

Oh - but you radial Cordoba freaks can build your mosque at Ground Zero. No, you don't have to disclose where money comes from. No, I don't care this is a documented terrorist tactic. No I don't care Germany just shut down Cordobas because they were terror cells. No, I don't care that by definition a mosque can't possibly be a "community outreach center".

Anyone with eyes, ears, and a brain knows clearly that Obama LOVES to violate the constitution and interfere with state/local policy. But now all of a sudden he changes his mind and state's rights and religious freedom matter? Anyone living through this nightmare dud of a president knows he's being a two-faced slimeball on the issue and that his motivation is his personal bias. That's why he's getting shellaqued in the ratings, the polls, and even (albiet reluctantly) in the press.

I could list lots of decisions Obama has made that I don't agree with, but he got it right on this one and I hope to see more of it.

You won't. This was a biased decision to favor an opinion/ideology that he sympathizes with. As evidenced by just about EVERY other thing he's ever done, Obama will do the exact opposite on any issue he finds politically convenient.

*Edit ^Gwiz said it much better than me... But I will keep my post up anyway... muahahaha...

* Disclaimer: This became a wall of text as I explained my reasoning. Also it is really really late so spelling might be off.
I hate to do this but winstonfield actually has one valid point even though his way of saying it was clumsy/not PC.
Reader's Digest: Wars are not winnable in modern times.

Full text:
Wars are not winnable in modern times as the populations are too big and know too much to simply accept a new ruler, even in backwater places like Afghanistan. Back in the day before proper nation states and democracy and all that a farmer could probably not care less who he paid his taxes to as long as he was left alone and had enough to feed himself and his family, and if he wasn't what could he do? The king was a king because God wanted it to be that way and he had knights and armies and the farmer did not. Today a 10 year old can mass produce home-made bombs that cost under 100 dollars a pop whilst a Military drops bombs that costs over 100 000 dollars a pop from 20 000 000 dollar aircrafts that land on 200 000 000 dollar Carriers. Today we know that wars cost money. We know that if you drag out a war long enough the populace of the invading force will most likely falter in their support, war weariness and all that (Vietnam anyone?). When the 100 000 US soldier dies by IED after 50 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq somehow I doubt that the support for the war will be there any more.

IMO if you want to win a war militarily you have to commit to total war and genocide and simply kill of all of the natives and move your own people in to settle the area. As long as one person remembers what it was like to be free from invaders they will fight. It is human nature. Just imagine if the USSR had invaded the US during the Cold War and conquered it militarily. Would the US citizens who survived the initial bombings just say, after a year or two or 8: "Oh, well. Guess I will stop fighting now and join the invading side. Seems like they have some things going for them..."? I doubt it.

Clarification:
Is this (Genocide and total war) something I advocate? No, but as Aldous Huxley said: "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." IMO War serves no other purpose than to cull some of the human population. Nothing more and nothing less. It has served its purpose in the past, when countries could be conquered, but it has become obsolete in the modern world where populations are too large to control properly.

A couple of random thoughts:
To win a war today you have to break every single convention on warfare there is and use NBC weapons, or massive bombardments and just carpet bomb every inch of the country you are at war with, to annihilate the populace. If you are not prepared to do that you should not go to war as you cannot win, ever! (If you are prepared to do that I hope you never get into a position of power!)

Militaries are not for winning wars, they are for fighting them. When the politicians are bored of the fighting or it starts to affect their ratings negatively they sue for a peace treaty...

What is the definition of winning a war? Aren't wars supposed to be about conquest and getting new land and natural resources or perhaps vindication for a perceived insult to the crown or something? What would constitute a win in the Afghan and Iraqi wars? And is that a military goal or a political one?

>> ^raverman:
This is the point in history where we all realised that the power of corporations over take the nation state and freedoms, bills of rights, and constitutions are no longer relevant.
You are now a consumer first and a citizen second.
Go on your way.


We just realized that? It has been going on since before mankind started to form civilization. Stone Inc., for example. Didn't we have a teaparty because of this? Back before the new teaparty?

This is the point in history where we all realised that the power of corporations over take the nation state and freedoms, bills of rights, and constitutions are no longer relevant.

You are now a consumer first and a citizen second.

Go on your way.

Because some people can't see past the nation-state granfalloon.>> ^Gallowflak:
and exactly why are they so fanatical that America is the greatest country in the world?

Seems to me that you view things as a bit too interchangeable - nation states annoy you? let's assume a citizenry tied to some arbitrary other thing, like ideology, instead of geographical place.

Corporatism annoys you? let's assume that communism could just have kept going, and was structurally sustainable in the long run.

details, details.

Blankfist, since you're admitting that Obama isn't 'guilty' of anything here, maybe you can edit the video title and description to say that "Obama Understands Government is Monopoly on Violence"? Because that's what it is - any nominally educated person understands that the government of a nation state holds a monopoly on violence in that state. If the citizens didn't grant the government a monopoly on violence, there would be private armies throughout the country, and independent fiefdoms wherever someone chose to set up and defend a border. There would be no justification at all for a police force, since every citizen would be equally entitled to arrest the cops, as the cops would be to arrest them.

The government of any democracy holds a monopoly on violence because it needs to be the only actor that is given the right to use violence against the citizenry. We give the government this right as long as it follows the rule of law; we agree to submit to this use of violence in order to legitimize the legal system and establish the possibility of actually enforcing the law. If the government doesn't have a monopoly on violence we have none of those things.

"What essentially sets a Nation-State apart which is the monopoly on violence."

That is pretty much a quote out of any poli sci text book on gloabalisation. Its part of the point of a nation state. The nation state is the only thing with legal authority to smack you across the face, or kill you, or whatever violence. What takes it too far is when it smacks without legitimate provocation. This quote isn't outrageous at all if you study politics and take it in context, its part of the theory we live in.

On that note... F*** Obama!

What the fuck is wrong with the submitter?

How the hell was this a smack down?

This douchebag only argument was "trust me" and "Israel is our ally". No one since 1967 has ever thought that Jerusalem was not divided into peacfully controlled other interests. Including a Christian section.

Israel was the last nation state to attack and sink a naval ship. In fact, it was the most expensive ship ever built.