This seems pretty confused RE the purpose of taxes. There’s no possible way for this to be any more than a PR stunt—tax authorities are imposing taxes, and hold dearly the right to allocate the proceeds.
I think anytime you see a movement that puts in their FAQ “taxpayers would boycott congress if they weren’t happy with the tax rate”, you probably have to just give up on the group and move on to someone with a more detailed model of public choice.
Congress holds dearly the right to allocate the proceeds? Why are they holding onto the right so dearly? Did they miss the part where tax choice on facebook only has 79 likes? There’s a vanishingly small amount of pressure on congress to relinquish the right.
We live in a democracy… economic ignorance is the obstacle. People don’t understand how they benefit from other people’s freedom. If they did, then they would have voted this up rather than down.
If you perceive that there are important details missing from my tax choice model then I’m all ears.
People don’t understand how they benefit from other people’s freedom. If they did, then they would have voted this up rather than down.
No. Starting a discussion with the title is political concept X less wrong, indicates that you are ignorant of how this community thinks about rationality and thus get voted down. Not arguing the case for the concept adds further insult to injury.
Even if people would agree with the basic idea, the post likely still would be voted down.
Honestly I didn’t quite understand your post. This is the closest I got...
“People do understand how they benefit from other people’s freedom… but they voted this down because they prefer to focus on style rather than substance.”
The second part can’t be right though so I just chose to respond to the first part.
but they voted this down because they prefer to focus on style rather than substance
Engaging in rational arguments is more than a style issue. If your post isn’t making a rational argument for the position that you advocate, then it has no substance, regardless whether there are other people out there how could make a rational argument for the position.
Two directions to approach the question of “why they hold that right so dearly”:
1) this direction of funding is a huge part of how they get paid and reelected. It’s the major reason that lobbyists and firms are willing to spend money on influencing congress.
2) this direction of funding is intimately tied to the justification for taxes in the first place. If congress doesn’t agree with the spending, it wouldn’t levy the tax in the first place.
If the government feels it necessary to take money forcibly, it’s because the government believes it can spend that money more wisely than the taxpayers. If it believes the tax base should individually choose how to allocate their money, it doesn’t need to tax them and poll for how to spend it, it can just take less taxes in the first place and let the populace spend/give directly to important causes.
Right now this post has −4 points. I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t congress who rated this post down. This means that there’s absolutely no reason for congress to hold onto the right so dearly. There’s absolutely no threat that anybody is going to take it from them. Voters don’t want the right for themselves.
If tax choice on facebook had millions and millions of likes then I can understand why you’d argue that congress was nervously holding onto their right so dearly. They would be confronted by a clear and present danger. But right now the tax choice facebook page only has 79 likes. Would you consider that to be a clear and present danger?
The challenge that’s in front of me really isn’t to convince congress to give up the right… it’s to convince people that they’ll really benefit from the creation of a market in the public sector. And the fact that I have to convince people of this means that they really don’t understand how or why markets work.
If people truly did understand how/why markets work then they would either vote this post up or explain what’s wrong with my understanding of how/why markets work.
If people truly did understand how/why markets work then they would either vote this post up or explain what’s wrong with my understanding of how/why markets work.
Or decide (rightly or wrongly) that getting into a substantial political argument with you is unlikely to be worth the trouble, and not bother.
But it’s kind of a disservice to other people if you’re capable of articulating the flaws in an argument in a public forum but you don’t bother to do so.
For example… it would have been a disservice to people interested in libertarianism/markets if I didn’t point out the problems in the best critique of libertarianism.
It’s a disservice if articulating the flaws in that article is the best thing you can do with your time. Without that proviso, you get Someone Is Wrong On The Internet syndrome.
(And, as SolveIt points out, people inevitably have other priorities besides helping others in every way possible all the time.)
(note: downvotes aren’t mine—I think it’s an imperfect post on a flawed concept, but it’s interesting and relevant.)
I’m not sure how to logically go from “only 79 likes on facebook” to “congress doesn’t feel any pressure” to “congress will welcome the change”. And I tend to agree with the people who ignore the topic: my basic position is that where markets are functioning, we don’t need government involvement in the first place. And the reverse—where the government has decided to control something, it’s because they believe markets are not able to deliver results they like.
This seems pretty confused RE the purpose of taxes. There’s no possible way for this to be any more than a PR stunt—tax authorities are imposing taxes, and hold dearly the right to allocate the proceeds.
I think anytime you see a movement that puts in their FAQ “taxpayers would boycott congress if they weren’t happy with the tax rate”, you probably have to just give up on the group and move on to someone with a more detailed model of public choice.
Congress holds dearly the right to allocate the proceeds? Why are they holding onto the right so dearly? Did they miss the part where tax choice on facebook only has 79 likes? There’s a vanishingly small amount of pressure on congress to relinquish the right.
We live in a democracy… economic ignorance is the obstacle. People don’t understand how they benefit from other people’s freedom. If they did, then they would have voted this up rather than down.
If you perceive that there are important details missing from my tax choice model then I’m all ears.
No. Starting a discussion with the title is political concept X less wrong, indicates that you are ignorant of how this community thinks about rationality and thus get voted down. Not arguing the case for the concept adds further insult to injury.
Even if people would agree with the basic idea, the post likely still would be voted down.
Do you understand how you benefit from other people’s freedom? If so, would you mind explaining it to me?
Yes. No.
Neither of those questions have a relevance to my post.
Honestly I didn’t quite understand your post. This is the closest I got...
“People do understand how they benefit from other people’s freedom… but they voted this down because they prefer to focus on style rather than substance.”
The second part can’t be right though so I just chose to respond to the first part.
Engaging in rational arguments is more than a style issue. If your post isn’t making a rational argument for the position that you advocate, then it has no substance, regardless whether there are other people out there how could make a rational argument for the position.
Two directions to approach the question of “why they hold that right so dearly”:
1) this direction of funding is a huge part of how they get paid and reelected. It’s the major reason that lobbyists and firms are willing to spend money on influencing congress.
2) this direction of funding is intimately tied to the justification for taxes in the first place. If congress doesn’t agree with the spending, it wouldn’t levy the tax in the first place.
If the government feels it necessary to take money forcibly, it’s because the government believes it can spend that money more wisely than the taxpayers. If it believes the tax base should individually choose how to allocate their money, it doesn’t need to tax them and poll for how to spend it, it can just take less taxes in the first place and let the populace spend/give directly to important causes.
Right now this post has −4 points. I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t congress who rated this post down. This means that there’s absolutely no reason for congress to hold onto the right so dearly. There’s absolutely no threat that anybody is going to take it from them. Voters don’t want the right for themselves.
If tax choice on facebook had millions and millions of likes then I can understand why you’d argue that congress was nervously holding onto their right so dearly. They would be confronted by a clear and present danger. But right now the tax choice facebook page only has 79 likes. Would you consider that to be a clear and present danger?
The challenge that’s in front of me really isn’t to convince congress to give up the right… it’s to convince people that they’ll really benefit from the creation of a market in the public sector. And the fact that I have to convince people of this means that they really don’t understand how or why markets work.
If people truly did understand how/why markets work then they would either vote this post up or explain what’s wrong with my understanding of how/why markets work.
Or decide (rightly or wrongly) that getting into a substantial political argument with you is unlikely to be worth the trouble, and not bother.
But it’s kind of a disservice to other people if you’re capable of articulating the flaws in an argument in a public forum but you don’t bother to do so.
For example… it would have been a disservice to people interested in libertarianism/markets if I didn’t point out the problems in the best critique of libertarianism.
It’s a disservice if articulating the flaws in that article is the best thing you can do with your time. Without that proviso, you get Someone Is Wrong On The Internet syndrome.
(And, as SolveIt points out, people inevitably have other priorities besides helping others in every way possible all the time.)
It’s also a disservice to not donate all but a tiny fraction of your income to poorer people. How many people do you know that does that?
(note: downvotes aren’t mine—I think it’s an imperfect post on a flawed concept, but it’s interesting and relevant.)
I’m not sure how to logically go from “only 79 likes on facebook” to “congress doesn’t feel any pressure” to “congress will welcome the change”. And I tend to agree with the people who ignore the topic: my basic position is that where markets are functioning, we don’t need government involvement in the first place. And the reverse—where the government has decided to control something, it’s because they believe markets are not able to deliver results they like.