From: Arlo Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Thu Jul 21 2005 - 18:06:11 BST
Hi Platt,
[Platt wrote about www.lowtax.net]
>If you click on "Offshore Jurisdictions" at the top left of the opening
>page it will take you to a list of low tax countries.
[Arlo]
Most of these I see on the list are small, island countries. Certainly
there would be a sacrifice in infrastructural affordances for anyone moving
there (not that life in "paradise" wouldn't be worth it!!). What I mean by
"affordances" (as you ask) are all the infrastructural niceities paid for
(in some way) by taxes (roadways, libraries, museums, parks, EMT services,
cable & telephone infrastructures, etc).
But I don't think this is a site for people seeking to move to a "low tax"
nation. Is it? It seems more like information for those who want to stay
living in America (or whatever country) but avoid paying taxes there.
Doesn't that shift the tax burden onto the people who are not wealthy
enough to use offshore accounts and investments? Doesn't that seem to you
like "wanting membership in a club" (America) but not wanting to pay the
"membership fee"?
[Arlo, previously, on the Wikipedia definition of "oligarchy"]
> > In many ways, I see America slipping this route, if not already firmly
> > moving in this direction.
[Platt]
>We could go around and around on this forever, so I guess we'll have to
>settle for agreeing to disagree. For me, having a monopoly on legalized
>violence makes government power much more threatening and frightening than
>corporate power ever was or could be.
[Arlo]
Well, although I think a strong argument can be made that true
economic-political leverage and power rests in the hands of a few, we can
agree to disagree on this. However, when President Jeb Bush is inaugurated
in 2009, we can return to this topic. Agree? :-)
[Platt]
>But, that we agree that an appropriate use of taxes in an MOQ moral
>society is to provide access to information, assure availability of common
>lands, and support a protective military constitutes a giant step forward
>in our discussion IMO. As usual, the devil is in the details. But, for now
>I glad we've progressed this far! Too bad others (except msh) have been
>uninterested in the subject to date. All the philosophical-type discussion
>is fine and dandy, but putting the MOQ to use in the "real world" is where
>I see its greatest potential for an evolutionary push. (Hope this doesn't
>trigger an esoteric discussion of the meaning of "real world." :-)
[Arlo]
I, too, Platt, am thinking we've made good progress. Ian had responded to
this, saying, "We need quality arguments, explanations and persuasions
comprising more than Aristotelian logic. Until that happens these debates
just hold too many snags to be worth the effort." I think we have a good
start, and maybe with some more effort we can formulate something that will
be more substantive, and hence attractive to other MOQers.
I do think one next big hurdle is addressing the issue of health care, and
I know from your ongoing exchange with MSH that topic is potentially too
"heated" to make any progress. Let me ask it this way. "Health services"
compromise everything from EMT responses to Viagra, from the Red Cross to
Blue Cross/Blue Shield, from life-saving angioplasty to cancer screenings,
from skin grafts for burn victims to boob-jobs.
While there are extremists who argue that "everything" in the health-care
umbrella should be provided "free via-taxation", and those that argue that
"everything" in the health-care umbrella should be privatized and sold only
to those with capital-means, I think both of these positions are somewhat
strawmen-positions. My personal feeling, and I think yours may be too (if I
understand correctly that you do not object to EMT services being funded by
tax dollars), is that some health-services should be supported by a
community, and others should be left to the "free market".
One way to think about this is a continuum from "life saving" to "life
enhancing". Having an ambulance crew available to perform CPR on a
heart-attack victim is what I would call "life saving", and so I opt to
consider this a valid use of community-supported health care. Viagra
prescriptions I would call "life enhancing", and using our "Freedom is not
the absence of necessity" I would say this is not a valid use of
community-supported health care.
The next big one is education, and I will respond to that in separate post
as promised (I was out riding North Central PA's beautiful state forests
yesterday :-)).
[Arlo had said previously]
> > But your point is well taken. Freedom is not the absence of necessity.
> > You've agreed to put something above your computer, and so I will agree to
> > put this.
[Arlo now adds]
Something that struck me yesterday (while out riding) was that according to
Csikszentmihaly, "Flow" requires a sustained level of challenge. That is,
you can't "Flow" if some necessity isn't driving you forward. A cyclist,
for example, finds flow in those times when her/his current skills are
being pushed at just the right degree to sustain motivation and push
her/his skills further. A mathematician will not find flow in solving basic
addition problems, but in a zone between what s/he knows and that next push
to something more, a push brought only about by some meaningful necessity
or goal. I just point this out because I know we've both expressed interest
in Csikszentmihaly's ideas.
[Arlo previously]
>I would only add that "freedom is the absence of restraints
> > imposed by external power structures (not just government), in the willful
> > pursuit of an individual's meaningful goals". That is, it is not only
> > government that can limit freedom.
[Platt]
>As said, I fear the power constraints of government much more than those
>of the private sector. But that the private sector is also capable of
>doing harm cannot be denied.
[Arlo]
I respect that.
I'll have my thoughts on education out soon.
Arlo
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