GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

[dcarrigg]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

as the ship starts to list, the rats all start heading for the exits/lifeboats = preservation of the status quo, no matter what the cost.

else we'd have some rational debate on energy policy, for one.
and cant even get to that...

Indeed. +1

[vt]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Good points; but there is the not so small problem of the output gap, and the Fed changeover. Both will probably speed the recession which we will see in 2014.
Recessions reduce revenues.

The only way to get out of this mess is to get rid of FIRE (we'll reduce is by half, but they will think it's all over), all special interests (elections are given a finite amount to spend), all sitting house members, and the third of the Senate up for election. Replace with independents. In 2016 replace another third of the Senate with independents.

We then move towards TECI, a major build out of nuclear power, diesel hybrids. We also downside all levels of government by attrition over time, gradually increase the age of social security and medicare eligibility, and reduce taxes in 2018. This will put us on the path to the best decade the U.S. has ever seen since the 6% growth rates in the 20's.

You might recall the torrid growth of the 1920's when Harding cut government spending 50% and reduced taxes. Of course Hoover totally screwed it up when he raised taxes and Smoot Hawley was passed.

[DSpencer]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Just in this thread Master Shake called the estate tax "confiscation." That is a fundamental tenant of extreme anarchist libertarian philosophy. Over the past couple of years it has leaked into the mainstream in a way that I have never seen before.

Bartlett explains how this applies to the current situation in his article from today:

Well isn't it confiscation by its very definition?

con·fis·cate
(knf-skt)tr.v. con·fis·cat·ed, con·fis·cat·ing, con·fis·cates
1. To seize (private property) for the public treasury.
2. To seize by or as if by authority. See Synonyms at appropriate.

[dcarrigg]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Well isn't it confiscation by its very definition?

No. It is not. Confiscation is a legal term. It also has the connotation of taking private property without compensation. This is very different from taxation, which is a fee levied on various activities to support the public weal.

[Rajiv]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

A view on conservatism and libertarianism by Corey Robin - Nozick: Libertarians are “filled…with resentment at other freer ways of being”

This is how Nozick characterizes his libertarian comrades:

Many of the people who take a similar position [as Nozick's] are…filled, paradoxically, with resentment at other freer ways of being.

[DSpencer]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

No. It is not. Confiscation is a legal term. It also has the connotation of taking private property without compensation. This is very different from taxation, which is a fee levied on various activities to support the public weal.

It's quite clear that the definition fits. They take private property for the public treasury. And they certainly don't compensate you for it. I concede that certain connotations only use confiscate in connection with illegal goods or funds involved in a crime. Of course by not voluntarily paying the tax then you are breaking the law and they will seize your property anyway. Would it then be confiscation in that context? Another common connotation when using the term in the sense of taxes is a subjective judgment regarding the level of taxation. Some might say a 1% tax is fine but an 80% or 100% is confiscatory. Maybe that is what Master Shake meant, I can't say.

Regardless, my intention was not to debate the semantics. I was just pointing out that when you reply to my post by railing against people who want to destroy the government entirely because taxation is evil, you're simply beating up a straw man.

[Raz]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

A view on conservatism and libertarianism by Corey Robin - Nozick: Libertarians are “filled…with resentment at other freer ways of being”

October 7, 2011

The Conservative as Elitist

By SHERI BERMAN

THE REACTIONARY MIND - Conservatism From Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin

By Corey Robin

290 pp. Oxford University Press. $29.95.


The American right has a lot to answer for these days. Members of this group are ardent peddlers of conspiracy theories, anti-intellectualism and the demonization of opponents. This approach has contributed in no small way to the sorry state of contemporary American politics, where epithets have replaced arguments, a sense of common destiny seems lacking among citizens and compromise has become almost impossible on the most pressing national issues. A book documenting the wreckage and carefully tracing the links between right-wing ideas, policies and outcomes would be a significant contribution to public debate. Unfortunately, Corey Robin’s “Reactionary Mind” is not that book. ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/bo...pagewanted=all

[dcarrigg]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

It's quite clear that the definition fits. They take private property for the public treasury. And they certainly don't compensate you for it. I concede that certain connotations only use confiscate in connection with illegal goods or funds involved in a crime. Of course by not voluntarily paying the tax then you are breaking the law and they will seize your property anyway. Would it then be confiscation in that context? Another common connotation when using the term in the sense of taxes is a subjective judgment regarding the level of taxation. Some might say a 1% tax is fine but an 80% or 100% is confiscatory. Maybe that is what Master Shake meant, I can't say.

Regardless, my intention was not to debate the semantics. I was just pointing out that when you reply to my post by railing against people who want to destroy the government entirely because taxation is evil, you're simply beating up a straw man.

No. You are 100% incorrect. This is not a strawman. Semantics are important. This has to do with the very fundamentals of American political discourse.

It used to be that taxation was taxation. Confiscation was confiscation. Theft was theft. Citizens were citizens.

If you start with the premise that taxation is confiscation, confiscation is theft (therefore taxes are theft QED), and citizens are consumers, then we cannot even communicate with each other effectively. Words used to have precise definitions. Once you start blurring them, we cannot communicate effectively.

One of the biggest divergences between extremist libertarian anarchism and 3,000 years of Western tradition is the very concept of private property. Do you know why we purchase "Real Estate" and not "Land?" It's because states own all land within their jurisdiction. This is a fundamental tenant of Western state sovereignty. When you purchase "Real Estate," you are purchasing an interest in land - a right to its exclusive use for certain functions. But you do not get to build a factory on real estate you own that is zoned residential. You don't get to own real estate on both sides of the US/Canadian border and decide which country you want "your land" to be part of. You don't get to beat your wife in "your" personal property. Because it's not "yours." The interest - the real estate - is yours. And if the state takes that interest from you without due cause, it must compensate you. And this is why imminent domain is not confiscation, nor has it ever been in Western history.

This is easier to think about if you think back to the age of absolute monarchs. The sovereign, embodied in the king, owned all of the land under the sovereign's jurisdiction, and only through the "grace" of the king were others granted title to use it. United States legal tradition grows out of this tradition whether you like it or not. Now sovereignty is granted to "the People," and exercised through "the Republic" rather than by the orders of a monarch. But the principles are the same.

By what right is anything granted as private property? In Western legal tradition, the state grants that right. The state determines which transactions are legal, and which are illegal. The state determines the tax or fee for allowing these transactions. The state determines when property may be plucked from the commons, certain uses of which are granted as private property. And the state determines the tax or fee for allowing this as well. The state also determines the price at which this should occur. This happens every day with oil and gas leases, property taxes, import tariffs, sales taxes, income taxes, and estate taxes, for example.

A Marxist would say that private property is simply the act of the wealthy "confiscating" land, resources and capital from the People and keeping it for their own personal greedy uses. And an extremist anarchist libertarian would just take the opposite view that public property is simply the act of the majority "confiscating" land, resources and capital from the wealthy and returning it to the People for some immoral purpose.

The truth of the matter is that neither extremist position has any route in Western legal tradition or any place in pragmatic American political discourse. Period. The argument is counterproductive and silly.

Rothbard really fleshes this nonsense out. He perverts the hell out of John Locke's second treatise and says that it is somehow man's natural right (not granted by God) to take any property as private on which man labors. He then says that private property is a sacred natural right, and no one may interfere with it on penalty of death. He redefines private property as the extension of an individual human being, and claims that theft is the exact equivalent of violence to somebody's body. This is the "non-aggresssion principle."

It is absolute horseshit - not based in reality or Western legal tradition at all. And you see how he has to bend definitions. Private property becomes people. So now private capital is people. So private capital earning interest is the same as a person laboring. So all usury is justified. The whole thing is nonsense.

And it all starts because of a fundamental misconception. And that misconception is definitional. As soon as you erase the difference between a person and the things a person owns, you have created a nonsense term.

As soon as you turn taxation into "confiscation" or "theft" and as soon as you turn citizens into "consumers" or "individuals" you are redefining fundamental civic concepts. And you are creating essentially contested concepts out of concepts that were heretofore agreed upon.

You might think this is all nonsense. But I worry about it greatly. If in a representative Republic people start believing that all taxation in confiscation and theft, then the corollary is that all government is illegitimate and must be overthrown. The government draws its power from the will of the people in America. At least that was the idea behind the founding of the country and most other republics. If you start using language to subvert the will of the people and make it illegitimate, you are fundamentally changing civic ideals.

Taxation was never voluntary because the state never had to allow any transactions at all. Taxation was never voluntary in modern Republics like the United States, because the People never had to allow any transactions at all. Never at any point in the history of America did the people choose to allow unfettered imports and exports without duties. Never at any point in the history of America did the people choose to allow to give away real estate as private property for free and without taxation. And before the Republic existed states in America had banned entails and primogeniture and instituted estate taxes to break the back of the Nobility, with noble titles being outlawed in the Constitution.

To claim that the will of the people is invalid because 100% of people don't voluntarily agree with the rules we set down as a society is hogwash. It requires either democracy with 100% consensus or anarchy with zero consensus or protections for civil rights and liberties. We live in a Republic. Taxation was never meant to be voluntary for 100% of citizens. That does not mean that taxation is improper, nor does it mean that it occurs without authority. The same authority of the state grants you the right to earn a pay check in your chosen business, so long as the business is legal, and grants you the right to purchase real estate, imported goods of certain types, and buy and sell goods with legal protections for private property. The authority is granted by the people. To claim that taxation is immoral or invalid because you did not volunteer to give taxes up is immaterial. The people legislated to allow you to earn the money or property that was taxed on the condition that it be taxed. And the people can take that right away, subject to the limits set forth by the bill of rights and the 14th amendment.

And so by calling taxation confiscation or theft and demanding it be voluntary, you are claiming that you personally have the right and the authority to disregard our democratic republic, the will of the people, and the rule of law. I fundamentally contest that right. No such right exists. You do not get to be a "Republic of one."

But the proliferation of these very wrong ideas starts by redefining concepts. People call taxation "confiscation" without stopping to think about what that means. If taxation is "confiscation" or "theft," then this is because it is not voluntary. The implication is that all laws must be agreed to voluntarily by 100% of citizens for any law to be valid. Under this implication, there can be no republic. This is why taxation was granted as a power of Congress in Article 1 of the Constitution, and it's no mistake it was made article 1.

No nationally-elected politician would openly suggest such nonsense as calling taxes theft just 10 years ago. They might say they were too high. They might make the Reagan/Laffer argument that revenue collection would actually increase if rates were lowered. They might make all sorts of other arguments. But to deny the very authority of the People of the United States of America by demanding that either your personal taxes should be 100% voluntary or else it is theft, is to deny the very legitimacy of the Republic to make, execute, and adjudicate laws. It is to deny 3,000 years of Western Tradition. It is a position as extreme as Communism, and one just as antithetical to democratic and republican institutions. It is a corrosive, poisonous idea. And I believe it is an idea that must be put to rest if we are to move on with civil discourse in this country.

[lektrode]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

....
And before the Republic existed states in America had banned entails and primogeniture and instituted estate taxes to break the back of the Nobility, with noble titles being outlawed in the Constitution.

..... If taxation is "confiscation" or "theft," then this is because it is not voluntary. The implication is that all laws must be agreed to voluntarily by 100% of citizens for any law to be valid. Under this implication, there can be no republic. This is why taxation was granted as a power of Congress in Article 1 of the Constitution, and it's no mistake it was made article 1.

No nationally-elected politician would openly suggest such nonsense as calling taxes theft just 10 years ago. They might say they were too high. They might make the Reagan/Laffer argument that revenue collection would actually increase if rates were lowered. They might make all sorts of other arguments. But to deny the very authority of the People of the United States of America by demanding that either your personal taxes should be 100% voluntary or else it is theft, is to deny the very legitimacy of the Republic to make, execute, and adjudicate laws. It is to deny 3,000 years of Western Tradition. It is a position as extreme as Communism, and one just as antithetical to democratic and republican institutions. It is a corrosive, poisonous idea. And I believe it is an idea that must be put to rest if we are to move on with civil discourse in this country.

whoooooo, dc!!!

dammit boy, when you are on it, YOU ARE ON IT, sir!

+1
and a(nother) point for dc.

sez the 'small r' type, surprisingly enough - formerly of The Live Free or Die State
(who had the good sense to keep the political class on a VERY TIGHT LEASH, by having NO income tax and NO sales tax - STILL after near 400years, and with a VOLUNTEER legislature, to boot...)

[Master Shake]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Just in this thread Master Shake called the estate tax "confiscation."

So, if I would have typed "taken" or "taxed" that would have been ok?

I'm not an "extreme anarchist liberatarian" just a classical liberal with a good vocabulary.

[Master Shake]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defenceand general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

There was not any income tax at the time Article 1 was written, nor an estate tax. Taxes, duties, imposts, and excises were very limited in scope. Personally, I'd like to see more imposts, duties, and excises and less taxes. Especially imposts, even though I don't know what they are, they just sound kind of cool.

Outrage over increasing taxes is not new and does not mean one is some Sovereign Citizen nutjob.

Are these guys extremist anarcho-Libertarians?

[dcarrigg]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defenceand general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

There was not any income tax at the time Article 1 was written, nor an estate tax. Taxes, duties, imposts, and excises were very limited in scope.

This is not true. There's a decent primer written in 1895. The 16th amendment somehow stays controversial, but this is what people at the time were thinking. They were not so far divorced from the founding of the republic, dealing with a new amendment, and a few odd souls would have still been alive who were babies at the time. It is true that income tax was relatively new at that time. Estate taxes are ancient. The Stamp Act of 1797 started them federally. But they existed in the colonies. As did "faculty taxes," which are very much similar to income taxes and corporate taxes - think of them maybe as a blending of the two for artisan proprietors.

Outrage over increasing taxes is not new and does not mean one is some Sovereign Citizen nutjob.

I'm not saying you have to love taxes. I'm saying that there's a sway even in the very language of the tea party and libertarian movements toward treating all taxes as illegitimate because they are not "voluntary." This is hogwash. We live in a republic. We don't live in a consensus democracy that requires 100% of the population to consent on laws. Calling taxes "confiscation" or "taking" or "theft" is just wrong. Just call it what it is.

As for the Beatles, the tax man has been hated since at least biblical times, and most certainly much earlier. And I never disputed that people have every right to argue that taxes are too high. I completely dispute that argument that taxation is anything but taxation and that somehow taxes must be 100% voluntary or they are theft or force or taking or confiscating or any other word you want to attach to it. We live in a republic. The republic passes laws. Laws do not require unanimous consent.

[vinoveri]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

federal taxes on citizenry is unnecessary in our current world of fiat currency unbacked by anything tangible (i.e., real wealth). the Fed gov can "print" whatever moeny it needs to fund expenses. Local taxes make sense. Federal taxes in todays world is just a means to exert control and trasfer wealth to bondholders. labor should not be taxed;

[Woodsman]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Can you elaborate on that, Vino? Has such "printing" been done anywhere else with success?

[vinoveri]

Re: GOP: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Woods, I didn't mean to imply it would be trivial to implement, only of the technical non-necessity.

Perhaps I'm trying to shift the discussion a bit which seems to be based on the idea that 1) the gov needs money to do things and 2)has to get that money from somewhere - liberals to conservatives argue over whether its wealth confiscation and redistribution or democratically agreed on voluntary contribution for the common good. When money was real (e.g., redeemable in gold a scarce commodity) these kinds of distinctions make sense to me, but when the gov can create the unit of account at will, and that fiat currenncy is irredeemable for any real wealth (other than what value the market puts on it), it is less than clear.

I know there are folks who advocate the gov printing whatever they want (greenbackers) and while I don't agree with them (arguments against them traditionally being that the gov can't be trusted with the money supply), I do recognize that the banking cartel has been given the power to produce the coin of the realm, and thereby have gained considerable control and power (but this control is not well percceived by the public), so I'd rather see it in the hands of the people (through elected reps of course). Again I realize there are a host of issues to do with, but paying interest to private parties so that we can create new money (and that interest is a transfer of wealth make no mistake) is problematic to me.