Fixed. Thanks.

In reply to this comment by Morganth:
*dead

Thanks for the promote, kind sir!

In reply to this comment by longde:
*promote

Fixed. Thanks.

In reply to this comment by KimzSendai:
*dead Such a pity

I'm blankfist, statist.

In reply to this comment by JiggaJonson:
Did you de-friend me on FB? What's all this about? I'm getting msgs from ppl telling me you're mad at me?

I DID realize just over the past 24 hours that M----D----- was not blankfist as previously thought, but come on I cant be expected to keep track of all of all these user names. Sorry if I sent any misdirected flak your way. Let me know what's what so I can clear up what I meant to say to who.

I do remember a comment about putting a bullet in your head after you said something to the effect of "Who cares about one less dead person in the world" but that was rhetorical of course.

Of course he was. It was a kill order. It was also unconstitutional. Sigh.

In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110504/ap_on_re_us/us_bin_laden

O man, what have we become.

http://videosift.com/talk/Edna-Mode-Dubbed-Royalty

Come one, come all! Please join us as we celebrate MikesHL13's recent achievement.

http://videosift.com/talk/Edna-Mode-Dubbed-Royalty

Come one, come all! Please join us as we celebrate MikesHL13's recent achievement.

http://videosift.com/talk/Edna-Mode-Dubbed-Royalty

Come one, come all! Please join us as we celebrate MikesHL13's recent achievement.

http://videosift.com/talk/Edna-Mode-Dubbed-Royalty

Come one, come all! Please join us as we celebrate MikesHL13's recent achievement.

To you too, sir. To you too.

In reply to this comment by chicchorea:
Happy Easter to you sir.

*spammer

The government does benefit the whole of society, but it also benefits special interests, corporations, lobbyists, those who skim off the top, and so on. But aside from who benefits, the action of extortion within itself is probably immoral on some Kantian level, right?

In reply to this comment by jonny:
No, the difference between government extortion and mafia extortion is who benefits. The government extorts to benefit everyone, the mafia extorts to benefit itself.

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
The difference between the government and the mafia is the process of voting for or against those who rob you and to a lesser degree what is taken from you.

That's one issue. People won't be incentivized by a tax write-off for charitable contributions. Though, those contributions won't make you better off with regard to the amount you pay, just who gets the money. But my point isn't about just contributions, it's mainly about "charitable actions" (reread my comment).

Most hospitals here are created by churches, a lot of charities are also run by churches and humanitarians, and a number of other services like soup kitchens run on private charities. Lots of good people filling a charitable need in society.

And with a person's added individual income not stolen to pay for spendthrift boondoggles like the Federal Government's wars and defense spending and the many needless bureaucracies, he'd have more for himself, and would most likely give more. Or spend his money in a way that would benefit charities he believed in.

And I tend to believe people are generally good in nature. Also I'm kind of high right now, so there's that.

In reply to this comment by jonny:
Really? I don't have any citations offhand, but my understanding is that total charitable contributions are directly proportional to the amount they may be deducted from taxes, i.e., the greater the incentive to give, the more is given. If all incentives to donate were removed, surely the amounts donated to charity would decrease?

In reply to this comment by blankfist:
I do believe charitable actions would be higher in an individualist society.

Spam defeated.

Thanks for promoting the arts and culture in our community!

In reply to this comment by lucky760:
I applaud your horrible Sift ethic, but I still can't bring myself to upvote it.

[edit]
But aww crap. I give in. Just because I want to imagine the WTF plastered on people's faces when they see this garbage at the top of the front page, I'll *quality it, you magnificent asshole.

(Let's see how well this whole community-based quality control actually works. @EndAll has the right idea.)