From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Sep 23 2005 - 13:59:36 BST
> [Platt previously]
> > I favor eliminating all Federal taxes except for a single percentage
> > sales tax on all purchases by businesses and individuals.
>
> [Case]
> What public services to you invision funding with that level of funding?
By single percentage sales tax I didn't mean a 1% tax. I meant the same
percentage for everyone, like 5%, 10% or 20%.
> [Platt]
> > I would say there are no individuals without other individuals to trade
> > goods and services with, except on a desert island.
>
> [Case]
> There are of course individuals living in isolation. But if that's your
> defination of the value of other people, it surely explains a lot of the
> other stuff you say. You seem to want to reduce all human interaction to an
> exchange of money for goods and services. So in your view we should all pay
> for love, rent friends, buy children. I think this is exactly the point I
> was making, your view of capitalism seem to reduce everything of value to
> cash.
In my experience love, friends and children all cost money. :-) But that
doesn't mean you can buy them. What I had in mind was dealing with
strangers. Better to trade value for value than have the government tell
you how you have to spend your money.
> [Platt]
> > It's human nature to be more concerned with one's own than with
> > strangers, especially when the strangers want to kill you.
>
> [Case]
> Perhaps we should be asking why these strangers want to kill us. Why do you
> think they do?
Because they're nuts, you know, 24 virgins in heaven and all that
nonsense.
> [Case]
> >> Chomsky like many patriots loves his country but hates what it does.
> [Platt]
> > Like his protege Michael Moore, he loves to hate America.
>
> [Case]
> Actually Moore is a protege of Ralph Nader. What exactly have any of these
> men done or said that makes you think they are not patriots?
"Patriot" as defined by Merriam Webster: "one who loves his or her
country and supports its authority and interests." Those characters fail
to meet the definition, especially in regards to elected "authority." To
them, whatever is wrong in the world is America's fault.
> [Case]
> The point is that terrorism is not conducted by armys. Iraq's government
> was not attacting us. I am just as upset about terrorist activity of any
> kind as you are. But do you seriously believe that invading countries will
> have any impact on the level of terroist activity?
Yes. We have not been attacked since 9/11.
> [Case]
> You are still missing the point. If all you did was keep it that would be
> pretty useless. Instead you get to make exchanges money for goods and
> services. This process of exchanges is in fact a redistribution of wealth.
> As I said at the onset all economic systems are about redistributing
> wealth.
In a capitalist system you and I exchange goods and services voluntarily.
Wealth is transferred from one type of asset to another. In a socialist
system, the government takes money out of your pocket and gives it to
somebody else. That's redistribution.
> [Case]
> >> How do socialists distribute wealth if none is created?
> [Platt]
> > By taking from those who do create it at the point of a gun. People will
> > always create if they have to, even if it's only a little cabbage patch.
>
> [Case]
> Can you provide some examples of social democracies that arm their tax
> collectors? If what you say is true about the cabbage patch, then a tax
> rate of 90% would have only a marginal impact on productivity.
Sure. Refuse to pay your taxes and see what happens. Sooner or later a
gendarme will show up at your door, or come to take away your cabbage
patch and enslave you for the "public good."
> > [Case]
> >> How do you explain our willingness to exchange about one third of our
> >> allotted time on earth in the pursuit of rectangular pieces of paper and
> >> small disks of metal?
> [Platt]
> > Money is a convenient measure of value, better than buffalo hides.
>
> [Case]
> How does this abstraction: Money attain its value?
Money used to be backed by gold, a universally agreed up measure of value.
Now money doesn't keep it's value due to government manipulation of the
money supply. It's called inflation. It's really another government tax
imposed on citizens.
> [Case]
> >> So you are living in a small town and Wal-Mart builds a Super Center.
> >> This puts the local merchants out of business. You don't like it but
> >> what are you to do? Where are you to shop?
> >[Platt]
> > Why don't you like it if you can get the same quality of goods and
> > services at a lower price?
>
> [Case]
> It really doesn't matter why, the point is there is no choice.
The choice to spend more than you need to for basic goods is a strange
choice. Anyway, you can always pay top dollar at your local Quick Stop if
you want to.
> >[Case]
> >> I suppose you would have to grant, as the courts have done, that privacy
> >> is a right. Then there is piss testing which seems to me to be an
> >> unlawful search and seizure but the courts have upheld that. Also read
> >> any End User Licensing Agreement and see what rights you surrender.
> >
> > There ain't no free lunch.
>
> [Case]
> So you are willing to give up the rights that patriots died to defend
> because it is expediant?
I don't think patriots died to defend a right not to be piss tested or to
eliminate End User Licensing Agreements.
> [Platt]
> > The Constitution limits what the government can do to "we the people."
> > Unfortunately, liberal courts have expanded government's nose into
> > everybody's business.
>
> [Case]
> So are you acknowledging that the constituion is in effect establishing the
> relationship between individuals and the state?
Sure. In limits what government can do to individuals -- freedom of
speech, freedom of religion, freedom of travel, etc.
> >> [Platt]
> > What you ought to do is pass an amendment to the state constitution
> > reducing the number of school administrators and instituting a right to
> > teach law to break up the teachers union's iron grip on the educational
> > system.
>
> [Case]
> I live in a right to work state. Our teachers are not allowed to strike and
> frankly our schools suffer as a result.
How so? How many non-union teachers in your school system?
> [Platt]
> > Waste is paying $300 for a screwdriver.
>
> [Case]
> Who is paying that much for a screwdriver and why?
Waste by government has been pointed out by many watchdogs over the years.
Why? Because government is basically spendthrift and inefficient.
> >> [Platt]
> > France's unemployment rate is over 10 percent.
> [Case]
> Unemployment in Europe is pretty consistant across countries and it in the
> 10% range. You saying that this is a result of what?
Socialism.
> [Platt]
> > "In 2003, the average Canadian waited more than four months for treatment
> > by a specialist once the referral was made by a general practitioner." --
> > The Fraser Institute.
> [Case]
> As I said before that is about the waiting time to see a specialist in my
> neck of the woods.
Not in mine. When my GP suspected prostate cancer, he referred me to a
urologist who saw me the same day!
Platt
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