The Pope Endorses Tax Choice

[Cannot think of a name]

What happened to 'rendering unto Caesar?'

[Ostroeuropa]

What happened to 'rendering unto Caesar?'

Same thing that happened to papal infallibility and the Jews being guilty of deicide.

[Ovisterra]

The Pope is an 80-something year old virgin who thinks condoms give you STDs and that his bread is haunted. Excuse me if I don't take his views on everything entirely seriously.

[Conserative Morality]

No one cares about the Pope. Even the Pope doesn't care about the Pope.

[Risottia]

Turns out that the pope endorsed tax choice 4 years ago...

Cicero pro domo sua. Did you know that the Italian Episcopal Conference gets a share on the Italians' income taxes, depending on how many taxpayers declare support for them in the tax form?

So, are any of you now "sold" on the tax choice concept because the pope endorses it? Do any of you like the tax choice concept even less because the pope endorses it?

Yeah, I could see it only as a (marginally) a good reason NOT to give tax choice.

Whose endorsement would you give the most weight to?

No one's. Stupid idea is stupid anyway.

I guess what I'm asking is...when it comes to new political/economic ideas...if you had to pick one person...whose opinion would you trust the most?

Myself. Close second, my fiancee.

...In short, persons are afraid to be free.

I ain't. That's why I don't give a fuck about who endorses what, and evaluate ideas by myself.

[Transhuman Proteus]

Tax choice is a ridiculous concept. It would ensure that programs that nobody has ever heard of get defunded. Like that subsidy for rural airports in Alaska that the one guy was bitching about 3 weeks ago.

It's ridiculous that you believe that "optimal" funding can be accurately determined by a small group of government planners.

You mean the people who have this kind of thing as a job and are presented with a lot of information relevant to making decisions regarding it?

Yes, I know they would be significantly less optimal than the unwieldy and frequently ignorant public who can get distracted by shiny objects (in political terms) who'd have none of the information available to that small group of government planners or information dumbed down and filtered through the media.

So what is your solution when, say, the public are shoveling shit tons of money into something (because it is the "nawwww, cute puppy" of funding) and vastly underfunding something else (the plankton of funding)? Do the small group of government planners reenter the picture to stop one thing getting far more money than it needs and make sure something vital that flies under most people's radar gets a look in?

Because you have your multi-billion dollar deals that are in your face, and then you have thousands of million dollar dealios equally as vital, but no one knows about because they are freaking boring. "Eh? Put my tax dollars into replacing type z-84A nozzle fittings on flow capacitors on sewage works built between between 1947 and 1950 based upon this report that found rate of corrosion in high humidity areas... Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Ooooo, battletanks and submarines for the army. High tech forensic computers for the police. Super spies for our intelligence agency! Fuck you type boring z-84A nozzle fittings."

[Xerographica]

You mean the people who have this kind of thing as a job and are presented with a lot of information relevant to making decisions regarding it?

If government planners can process more information than a market can...then why wouldn't you advocate for a 100% tax rate?

Yes, I know they would be significantly less optimal than the unwieldy and frequently ignorant public who can get distracted by shiny objects (in political terms) who'd have none of the information available to that small group of government planners or information dumbed down and filtered through the media.

The public is ignorant...except when it comes time to knowing which government planners to vote for?

So what is your solution when, say, the public are shoveling shit tons of money into something (because it is the "nawwww, cute puppy" of funding) and vastly underfunding something else (the plankton of funding)? Do the small group of government planners reenter the picture to stop one thing getting far more money than it needs and make sure something vital that flies under most people's radar gets a look in?

Is the tax choice movement underfunded?

Because you have your multi-billion dollar deals that are in your face, and then you have thousands of million dollar dealios equally as vital, but no one knows about because they are freaking boring. "Eh? Put my tax dollars into replacing type z-84A nozzle fittings on flow capacitors on sewage works built between between 1947 and 1950 based upon this report that found rate of corrosion in high humidity areas... Zzzzzzzzzzzz. Ooooo, battletanks and submarines for the army. High tech forensic computers for the police. Super spies for our intelligence agency! Fuck you type boring z-84A nozzle fittings."

Do you think epiphytes are interesting?

[Bottle]

If the Pope endorsed a breakfast cereal, I would assume that the box includes a free rapist as a prize.

He's a rape-supporting genocidal con man living in a golden palace that is funded largely by tax evasion. Why the fuck is his endorsement ever considered a good thing?

[Alyekra]

Pretty mild thing to endorse. I don't see the big deal.

[Wisconsin9]

You assume that I give a fuck about what the Pope tells me to do. As someone who's not Catholic, I couldn't give half of one. As someone who despises religious interference in private lives, that's another half a fuck that I don't give. Add the two numbers together, and you get one fuck that I don't give.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Aww. Some people still believe that each member of society is a rational utility maximizer. How cute!

[Xerographica]

Aww. Some people still believe that each member of society is a rational utility maximizer. How cute!

Therefore...authority? Therefore...centralization? Therefore...homogeneous activity? Therefore...what?

[Dumb Ideologies]

Aww. Some people still believe that each member of society is a rational utility maximizer. How cute!

Therefore...authority? Therefore...centralization? Therefore...homogeneous activity? Therefore...what?

Well, therefore the scheme you are so obsessed with is founded on a fundamentally unsound premise and sinks slowly into the sand while a local jazz musician plays walks by playing this for you.

[Xerographica]

Therefore...authority? Therefore...centralization? Therefore...homogeneous activity? Therefore...what?

Well, therefore the scheme you are so obsessed with is founded on a fundamentally unsound premise and sinks slowly into the sand while a local jazz musician plays walks by playing this for you.

Here are my claims...

1. Economists agree that your true preferences for public goods are necessary to determine the optimal supply of public goods
2. If taxpayers could shop for themselves in the public sector then they would allocate their taxes according to their true preferences
3. Therefore, tax choice would result in the optimal supply of public goods

Which one is the fundamentally unsound premise?

[Ovisterra]

Economists agree

Which ones, out of a matter of interest?

[New Chalcedon]

*sigh*

The Pope thinks that he, and he alone, gets to decide who gets into Heaven after they die. He also considers homosexuality to be a choice, and a sinful choice at that, opposes the use of contraception and considers a pre-implanted zygote to be a human being. Prior to becoming Pope, the most notable milestone of his career (besides being known as an ultraconservative firebrand within the College of Cardinals) was to use the power of his office to ensure that paedophile priests were protected from secular law.

I'm rather afraid that citing him as an authority won't move me - or many people. Even most Catholics have moved on beyond what their ex-HJ Pope has to say on how they may or may not use their bodies.

Also, Caritas in Veritate endorses the following:

- The empowerment of trade unions:

The repeated calls issued within the Church's social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum[60], for the promotion of workers' associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honoured today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level.

- Steps to be taken to ensure universal access to the necessities of life, even for the very poorest people and nations:

It is therefore necessary to cultivate a public conscience that considers food and access to water as universal rights of all human beings, without distinction or discrimination[65].

- A reversion to Catholic doctrine for all States, at all levels and in all activities:

When the State promotes, teaches, or actually imposes forms of practical atheism, it deprives its citizens of the moral and spiritual strength that is indispensable for attaining integral human development and it impedes them from moving forward with renewed dynamism as they strive to offer a more generous human response to divine love[71]. In the context of cultural, commercial or political relations, it also sometimes happens that economically developed or emerging countries export this reductive vision of the person and his destiny to poor countries. This is the damage that “superdevelopment”[72] causes to authentic development when it is accompanied by “moral underdevelopment”[73].

- Guaranteed access to steady employment for everyone:

The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require, particularly today, that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner[83], and that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone.

- The de-secularisation of sex education:

nor can sex education be reduced to technical instruction aimed solely at protecting the interested parties from possible disease or the “risk” of procreation.

- The banning of same-sex marriage (His Sidiousness can't write a letter without bringing Teh Ghey up, if only by implication):

In view of this, States are called to enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society[112], and to assume responsibility for its economic and fiscal needs, while respecting its essentially relational character.

- A politically active Church imposing its values on society:

The Church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere. In so doing, she must defend not only earth, water and air as gifts of creation that belong to everyone. She must above all protect mankind from self-destruction. There is need for what might be called a human ecology, correctly understood. The deterioration of nature is in fact closely connected to the culture that shapes human coexistence: when “human ecology”[124] is respected within society, environmental ecology also benefits. Just as human virtues are interrelated, such that the weakening of one places others at risk, so the ecological system is based on respect for a plan that affects both the health of society and its good relationship with nature.

- The recognition of the Catholic Church as the embodiment of human unity:

God desires to incorporate us into this reality of communion as well: “that they may be one even as we are one” (Jn 17:22). The Church is a sign and instrument of this unity[131].

- Discrimination against non-Catholics:

For this reason, while it may be true that development needs the religions and cultures of different peoples, it is equally true that adequate discernment is needed. Religious freedom does not mean religious indifferentism, nor does it imply that all religions are equal[133].

- De-secularisation of public life:

The Christian religion and other religions can offer their contribution to development only if God has a place in the public realm, specifically in regard to its cultural, social, economic, and particularly its political dimensions.

And many other controversial things, some of which I agree with, some of which I do not. Now, I have a question for you: Being as you have cited Caritas in Veritate as an authority of taxation justice, do you also support His Sidiousness' other words? Or are you picking & choosing?

Don't get me wrong - there is much good in this encyclical, a great deal of wisdom to be found if you have the patience to read it. But I don't consider it (as a document) to be an authority on issues precisely because there are many portions of it with which I do not agree. It is in agreement with me on many issues - this does not make it an authority, if only due to the abject stupidity it spouts elsewhere.

[EnragedMaldivians]

Who pays for that gilded golf cart of his anyway?

[Ifreann]

If anything, the Pope endorsing tax choice makes me like it less.

[Divair]

If anything, the Pope endorsing tax choice makes me like it less.

Counter-productive thread is counter-productive, it seems

[Cosmopoles]

Here are my claims...

1. Economists agree that your true preferences for public goods are necessary to determine the optimal supply of public goods
2. If taxpayers could shop for themselves in the public sector then they would allocate their taxes according to their true preferences
3. Therefore, tax choice would result in the optimal supply of public goods

Which one is the fundamentally unsound premise?

2 and 3. It works on the assumption that the value of public goods paid for by each taxpayer is the same as the value of the public goods received.

[New Chalcedon]

Well, therefore the scheme you are so obsessed with is founded on a fundamentally unsound premise and sinks slowly into the sand while a local jazz musician plays walks by playing this for you.

Here are my claims...

1. Economists agree that your true preferences for public goods are necessary to determine the optimal supply of public goods
2. If taxpayers could shop for themselves in the public sector then they would allocate their taxes according to their true preferences
3. Therefore, tax choice would result in the optimal supply of public goods

Which one is the fundamentally unsound premise?

All three.

(1) requires evidence.

(2) ignores the fact of information asymmetry. Best demonstrating example of this was the whole "Death panels" scam over the Affordable Care Act, in which a few very loud right-wingers were able to convince 41% of the public that they are created by the ACA, when they are in fact not. All of which leaves aside the simple fact that almost no-one would choose to fund the ATO, for instance.

(3) is false, leading from the falsity of (2).

More pertinently to this thread, His Sidiousness is a hypocrite of the highest order. He calls for governments to surrender power over their use of their incomes, yet refuses to allow the Catholic Church to do so - once you've given a tithe, you have no choice in how the Church spends it.

[Mavorpen]

Well, therefore the scheme you are so obsessed with is founded on a fundamentally unsound premise and sinks slowly into the sand while a local jazz musician plays walks by playing this for you.

Here are my claims...

1. Economists agree that your true preferences for public goods are necessary to determine the optimal supply of public goods
2. If taxpayers could shop for themselves in the public sector then they would allocate their taxes according to their true preferences
3. Therefore, tax choice would result in the optimal supply of public goods

Which one is the fundamentally unsound premise?

So basically you've turned this thread into a copy and paste session, where you just copy and paste your idiotic argument from your other thread about tax choice.

[New Chalcedon]

Here are my claims...

1. Economists agree that your true preferences for public goods are necessary to determine the optimal supply of public goods
2. If taxpayers could shop for themselves in the public sector then they would allocate their taxes according to their true preferences
3. Therefore, tax choice would result in the optimal supply of public goods

Which one is the fundamentally unsound premise?

So basically you've turned this thread into a copy and paste session, where you just copy and paste your idiotic argument from your other thread about tax choice.

When there are no other arguments to make, what else can he do?

[Divair]

Here are my claims...

1. Economists agree that your true preferences for public goods are necessary to determine the optimal supply of public goods
2. If taxpayers could shop for themselves in the public sector then they would allocate their taxes according to their true preferences
3. Therefore, tax choice would result in the optimal supply of public goods

Which one is the fundamentally unsound premise?

So basically you've turned this thread into a copy and paste session, where you just copy and paste your idiotic argument from your other thread about tax choice.

It's like that guy who keeps talking about great souls or something. Completely obsessed with one thing and one thing only.

[Mavorpen]

So basically you've turned this thread into a copy and paste session, where you just copy and paste your idiotic argument from your other thread about tax choice.

When there are no other arguments to make, what else can he do?

I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he would keep the thread about people who support public choice. But at the back of my mind, I just knew that this thread was going to end up as a copy and paste of the other thread. I just... I don't understand the desire to make the same thread just to dodge arguments you list in another thread.

Okay, that was a lie. I can understand it. That doesn't make it any less annoying.