Govt is corrupt, so why do liberals want bigger govt !?!?

[Liriena]

I fart in your general direction!

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!

Hey, it's the truth. You all DO disgust me. I didn't make that up.

I am disgusted by extreme individualism and the cult of personality over the goodness of greed...but hey, I'm not the one name-calling!

[New Cassel]

Who knows?

Probably they are just following the indoctrination that they have received from leftwing educators, pop culture, and the main stream media who are all proponents of big government.

If I could deprogram leftists, I would enlighten them to the fact that government is a market for corruption.

Essentially, it is a place where special interests go to get something by coercive means that they couldn't get in a free, voluntary, and competitive society.

For example, the reckless and irresponsible financial institutions that engaged in questionable business practices prior to the 2008 crisis successfully went to Washington to get bailed out by Bush, RINO republicans and virtually every democrat in Congress (including obama).

Not surprisingly, these same banks contributed generously to both obama and bush in their respective elections. Moreover, the these same failed bankers have figured prominently in both the bush and obama cabinets.

Using the 'logic' of the Left -- obama, bush, and democrats in congress were required to divert scarce resources from productive sectors of the economy to bailout the very negligent and reckless firms and individuals who helped cause the crisis or in the very least were clueless on how to mitigate its impact.

They don't really know why --just that the same fools and crooks who caused the crisis must be bailed out AND the politicians and elites in finance told them that a bail out was necessary ??!! How 'surprising' and convenient for these same elitist politicians and bankers.

In reality, the purpose of government isn't to promote sustainable and beneficial economic policy -- it is for self-serving politicians and their corrupt cronies in the public and private sector to 'game' the system to their benefit at the expense of productive individuals and firms in the private sector (who by definition don't need government help).

This is the preamble of ECO 101 for progressives.

In sum, if any liberal/progressive/leftist thinks that government is not corrupt and coercive -- then you cant proceed further and we need to resolve this impasse.

Please ask questions.

Oh hey there Truth to Power! You should go back to trolling Thom Harmanns website. I see you haven't been able to develop your argument!

[AuSable River]

Why do conservatives want bigger businesses?

Because of the delusion that they live in an economy with markets of perfect competition in which the market provides exactly what everyone needs and wants on both ends, and everyone is consciously or subconsciously willing to help one another through their greed and obsession for wealth, thus leading to some utopia in which everyone has a job with a good wage (yeah, right ) to buy all the things they need at the fair price, as settled by the crossing of the curve of demand and the curve of offer...

...and they lived happily ever after...until human nature came along.

nobody said anything humans did was perfect.

yours is not an argument --- for example, condemning the free market because it is not perfect.

this is ridiculous.

lastly, read spontaneous order, I, pencil and creative destruction from sources of your choosing.

they provide a base framework for understanding of the free market.

[Holy Trek]

Rated by whom? I would love to see this list.

Well you could say that about lots of government agencies. So do you propose they be staffed by imbeciles who have no expertise in the areas they should be regulating or do we just throw out all the rules that protect the populace from adverse effects of companies doing business with no regard to the consequences of their actions?

what where the next four most corrupt? in order.

Mostcorrupt.com (a left-wing website) rated the EPA as one of top nine most corrupt agencies in the country following...


Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Forest Service

Health Resources and Services Administration

Department of Homeland Security

Interior Department

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)

Department of Agriculture (USDA)

You can get the full list here.
http://www.mostcorrupt.com/Most-Corrupt-Agencies.htm

Why do I not seem convinced by the Conservative lingo and the site?

[Mavorpen]

wrong

government is a self-serving scheme that benefits politicians, bureaucrats, and their cronies in the private and public sector in a quid pro quo scheme of preferential tax and regulatory policy in exchange for special interest votes and campaign contributions.

Businesses are self-serving entities that benefit CEOs and chairmen of said businesses, and their cronies who crush competition thanks to limited government power.

hence the large number of lobbyists in washington.

What? It's not due to the government, it's due to capitalism and a stupid populace.

do you seriously think they are lobbying washington with hundreds of billions of dollars in order to help society ????!!!!

Of course not, they are products of capitalism.

[Holy Trek]

(Image)

And exactly WHAT is this implying, if you're not afraid of being chased out of this discussion?

[AuSable River]

Who knows?

Probably they are just following the indoctrination that they have received from leftwing educators, pop culture, and the main stream media who are all proponents of big government.

If I could deprogram leftists, I would enlighten them to the fact that government is a market for corruption.

Essentially, it is a place where special interests go to get something by coercive means that they couldn't get in a free, voluntary, and competitive society.

For example, the reckless and irresponsible financial institutions that engaged in questionable business practices prior to the 2008 crisis successfully went to Washington to get bailed out by Bush, RINO republicans and virtually every democrat in Congress (including obama).

Not surprisingly, these same banks contributed generously to both obama and bush in their respective elections. Moreover, the these same failed bankers have figured prominently in both the bush and obama cabinets.

Using the 'logic' of the Left -- obama, bush, and democrats in congress were required to divert scarce resources from productive sectors of the economy to bailout the very negligent and reckless firms and individuals who helped cause the crisis or in the very least were clueless on how to mitigate its impact.

They don't really know why --just that the same fools and crooks who caused the crisis must be bailed out AND the politicians and elites in finance told them that a bail out was necessary ??!! How 'surprising' and convenient for these same elitist politicians and bankers.

In reality, the purpose of government isn't to promote sustainable and beneficial economic policy -- it is for self-serving politicians and their corrupt cronies in the public and private sector to 'game' the system to their benefit at the expense of productive individuals and firms in the private sector (who by definition don't need government help).

This is the preamble of ECO 101 for progressives.

In sum, if any liberal/progressive/leftist thinks that government is not corrupt and coercive -- then you cant proceed further and we need to resolve this impasse.

Please ask questions.

Oh hey there Truth to Power! You should go back to trolling Thom Harmanns website. I see you haven't been able to develop your argument!

I cant, I was banned by Thom for exposing statist nonsense.

In fact, I so completely destroyed the arguments on the Left that I believe that Thom removed the entire thread -- including all the vitriolic arguments from the statists.

[Miss Defied]

You've responded to just about every post but this one. I wonder why that is. It's okay if you realized you can no longer defend your OP. Just say so. Humility is an admirable trait.

snip

Awwwww, we sure have missed you!

Incidentally, it was so weird that you stayed away from is thread for a few days. Especially after some people made some fairly strong posts against your case. So just in case you missed them, I'm going to put them here so you can read them.

This one is a meticulously detailed refutation of your silly little FDA is the biggest accidental murderer story. I honestly can't believe Neo Art took the time to compose it because arguing with you is like isometric exercise. It's one little thing but what is shows is how you make claims about things that are very clearly just regurgitations of crap you've heard elsewhere. You think you can come here and parrot these wild assertions that are without merit.

What's funny is that even his own source defeats his own argument:

His claim was "prescription drugs are the highest cause of accidental death in the USA". That's, of course, not true. The own source shows that, in 2008 at least, the highest cause of accidental death was poisoning. Not "prescription drugs". 41,000 deaths, to car accidents' 38,000

Then add this fact: "2008, 89% of poisoning deaths were caused by drugs."

So of those 41,000, 89% were caused by "drugs". Not "prescription drugs", not "legal drugs". Drugs. All drugs. The remaining 11% were from things such as mushroom poisoning, ingestion of chemicals, etc etc.

So, 89% of 41,000 is 36,490. 36,490 accidental deaths in 2008 caused by "drugs" (or we can cite directly the report "Of the 36,500 drug poisoning deaths in 2008..."). How many were caused by car accidents? Right, 38,000.

Funny, I think 38,000 is more than 36,500. That would mean that car accidents caused more accidental deaths than "drugs". Isn't that exactly the opposite of what the OP claimed? Didn't he claim that drugs (not just drugs, but explicitly prescription drugs) were the LEADING CAUSE of accidental deaths in the USA?



Yup.

Oh well, so much for that theory. "drugs" as a catagory doesn't beat car accidents after all, and that's including legal AND illegal drugs.

So what about those illegal drugs hm? Let's see: "Opioid analgesics (note - painkillers) were involved in nearly 15,000 deaths in 2008, while cocaine was involved in about 5,100 deaths and heroin was involved in about 3,000 deaths"

So of those 36,500 deaths, 8,100 were clearly involving illegal drugs, and only 15,000 were attributable to LEGAL drugs. So now we've gone from "41,000 deaths by FDA approved drugs" to "15,000" (which by the way, is less than half that of car accidents, and fewer in number than those that fell to their deaths).

So now we're down to 15,000. So does that mean that 15,000 people died to FDA approved drugs, does that mean that those drugs should have not been approved?

of course not. In fact, from that very same report "misuse and abuse" of drugs has been on the rise. What's that mean? It means that many of those deaths were caused by people not following instructions, either because they didn't know them, or were addicted to them.

So we've gone from "FDA drugs kill over 40,000 people a year because they're unsafe" to "15,000 people died in 2008 due to toxicity caused in part by FDA drugs, the majority of which were caused due to misuse or abuse of that drug".

So here we have deaths caused by drugs that, if not dosed properly, can kill you, and the OP's solution is to...get rid of the organization responsible for ensuring they're labeled properly.

Brilliant!



Now, having taken the OPs advice to:



I have, and upon reflection, have reached a conclusion.

You are HORRIBLY bad at this. Like, stunningly bad. To the point where you are, and I say this without reservation, literally the worst debator on this forum.

You are awful.

Ponder that, if you're able.



Yeah, one would think that, wouldn't one?



To channel the OP's logic - "fuck you, that's how"

If you are going to only read one of these please let this be the one. It is a very earnest detailing of your failings in the realm of logic and rhetoric. Really, it will do you well to read this and take it to heart.

While you should be lauded for actually trying to make an intelligent argument, (even if you are horribly failing in the process) you are, predictably, failing to do so here, I expect because you are trying to imitate the logical arguments you have seen being met with success, without actually understanding how or why a logical, intelligent argument is respected, where the irrational, essentially faith (not in the religious sense) based arguments that seem to have convinced you, typically fail to convince intelligent people, and will generally get you laughed out of the room. So allow me to show you what you did wrong:

First, you start off by essentially saying that all people on the left side of the isles are indoctrinated by the media and popular culture. This is, under the best of circumstances, a reckless opening since you are making a wild claim, that is sure to offend a large part of your audience, liberal and conservative alike. If you will recall your High School writing classes, the introduction to an essay, (which is typically just an extended argument), you are supposed to pull your audience in, not make yourself hostile to them. Now, it is possible, in theory, to get away with such a claim, but you absolutely must immediately follow it, either with a thesis that will prove it as such, or at least strong evidence or logical demonstration of fact, in order to back it up. In this way you win back the audience's attention, even if begrudgingly. You do neither. Your topic is about something else entirely, and you end up just taking this as a given. This means that, as a result, the only people that are going not be offended are essentially those that think this exact thing already, as you have already alienated everyone else. So then why write this? The only people liable to by sympathetic to your writing are those who already think the exact same thing, so clearly they don't need to be convinced. Therefore, unless you are just wanting to sit around wanking off to each other in written form, your argument has already failed.

The second place where you misstep is the third paragraph and onward, your main thesis and body paragraphs to go back to the High School writing courses (which I'm sure you didn't just blow off because you thought it wasn't important, or knew better). You start off by stating that the government is corrupt, then citing the influence of special interest groups and the recent financial crisis in America as evidence. The problem here is that this is not evidence, as you do not say what the logical link is between the two. You don't show how the presence of these special interest groups are corrupting our government, you don't show how the recent financial crisis is evidence of this. It is true that often someone constructing a logical argument might cite a historical or current event as evidence of their position with very little explanation and move on, but the reason they can do this and sometimes get away with it is that it is already commonly accepted that X event is an example of Y. (For instance, the continued aggression of Nazi Germany that eventually lead to WWII being an example of the failure of appeasement, to use a commonly accepted, if not particularly historically accurate, example) Even when people do this, it does not make for a particularly strong argument, and is really only socially allowed to occur because people understand that a person might be rushed for time or space. But in this case, the influence of special interest groups is NOT accepted as always making a government corrupt, and the recent financial crisis is NOT commonly accepted as being evidence of this. Indeed, the general, though by no means uncontested, view in America is that the financial crisis resulted from NOT ENOUGH government regulation of these financial institutions. Therefore, you needed to actually give fairly objective evidence, or a sound explanation of how exactly this is evidence of government corruption, which you don't do. This is echoed over and over again throughout your argument here, such as where you say the purpose of government is just for the material gain of the politicians (for which you give no evidence), that democrats are diverting scare resources (what resources, and how are they scarce) away from important sectors of the economy (what sectors of the economy, and why are they important?) just to bailout reckless firms and individuals (how are all the firms and individuals who benefited from the stimulus reckless?), for which you have also offered no logical proof. So, because you refuse to actually give proof for your claims, there is no reason your audience should accept them as legitimate.

The third problem is that you don't give us an alternative. Sure, your implied alternative is that if big government is bad, smaller, or no government, should be good, but this is not enough because, again, you are assuming most people agree with you, when in fact not even a plurality (read: biggest minority) of people agree necessarily agree with you. You haven't explained how a smaller government would solve these problems, how taking power away from the government would keep the already tremendous power of the special interest from crowding out any ability the government would have to fight back, or even how less government involvement in the affairs of these special interest would decrease their power. I suspect the reason for this is that you don't know yourself, but even if I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you do, you have not given it, so there is no reason your audience should accept your alternative as better than the status quo, when indeed for all they know (since you HAVEN'T EXPLAINED what your alternative is) it is worse.

Your final blunder is simply the fact that you are being petulant and obnoxious. You are using a bunch of words and phrases that people other than yourself have uttered, in much better context and with much better justification, that appear to be intelligent, popular and edgy, with the apparent ability to rile people up (after all, they probably riled you up when you first heard them). For instance, you use "Obama, Bush, and the democrats", since you perceive that all three are unpopular, but without the contextual knowledge to know that, at the very least, Bush, his failures, and his unpopularity, are not allied with the democrats or Obama (or, on a slightly more complex note, that clumping the actions of congressional democrats with Obama is not entirely accurate either). You call this diatribe about how government only exists to benefit the politicians and this cronies the "preamble to Economics 101", as if you are trying to add some academic legitimacy to your work, when really it just ends up making you infuriating to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of economics, as this has absolutely nothing to do with it, and patronizing to everyone else. You seemingly randomly break up your statement with diatribes against Obama and the democrats, which while in an intelligent discussion or essay might pass as humor, are just as baseless and petty as the rest of your argument, making your argument clunky, and making yourself appear petty and dishonest, as it make the audience question why you taking petty shots at people you don't like instead of explaining your argument, which in turn makes it look like you are trying to pull a fast one on them by insulting people instead of explaining yourself.

So basically, the problem with this topic, and your argument in general comes down to this: it isn't doing anything to make anyone more sympathetic to your position. You, in essence, don't make a case for yourself, you just sit there and throw out words you hope will get people as riled up as they got you. Your topic will not be sympathetic to anyone, except those who already agree with you, which makes it somewhat less useful than preaching to the choir, as in this case you are likely you are likely to alienate some of the choir. So really, I do applaud you for trying to make a logical, sympathetic argument, but this only makes it worse when you fail so horribly. And for the love of God, don't say you didn't fail, you failed to make a logical, sympathetic argument by every definition of the term. This is no reason you shouldn't keep trying, but for the love of God, make sure to learn from the mistakes you made here for next time.

Another good example of someone blowing open the wide gaping holes in everything you say. It is full of facts, logic and empirical evidence which I know you love because you reference them in about one-third of your posts. The problem is all you do is blurt out a series of non-sequiturs. It is a very good rebuttal that any reasonable person cannot dismiss. (BTW that is the word you are looking for-rebuttal-it's a noun. Rebut is the verb form but you keep using it as a noun.)

Let's review what we've seen so far, since we appear to have meandered a bit and the topics have become mixed.

OP Argument 1: Government is always corrupt, and increasing its scale increases the scale of corruption.
I provided three metrics illustrating that no fewer than four first-world, industrialized, globally-trading countries with massive welfare states were nigh unto devoid of corruption. The OP responded to this criticism of Argument 1 by accusing me of comparing apples to oranges, citing the difference in population between these countries and the USA as evidence.

In so doing the OP has failed to realize that this point is absolutely, positively immaterial to the question of whether or not extensive government influence belies extensive corruption. As a consequence, I argue that the OP has failed to actually defend Argument 1 against my criticism and has further failed to provide a metric illustrating a direct, causative relationship between the act of increasing government spending and the increase of corruption, which would actually provide a defense of Argument 1. Another method would be to demonstrate that the governments of those four countries are actually "small" governments (the population is irrelevant to the argument). To take this second route would require quantification of what constitutes a "big" and "small" government, something else we have yet to be provided. Yet a third method would be to substantiate a claim that these four governments are actually very corrupt.

OP, you have to understand that you have made a universal argument. If I can find even one example of a large-scale government which is not rife with corruption your argument loses its quality of being universally applicable. To continue to assert that government is inherently corrupt and becomes more corrupt as its scale increases in spite of this counter evidence (as you have) is logically invalid. You have provided no evidence to substantiate that your claim is universally true and you have not actually defended your argument from my counter examples.

OP Argument 2: The USA bears a higher standard of living and quality of life than Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark thanks to its higher GDP per capita PPP. Furthermore, most US states outperform the GDP per capita PPP of all the Scandinavian states.
First things first: the claim that the USA overall has a higher GDP per capita PPP than all the Scandinavian states is demonstrably false. Simply shrugging one's shoulders and saying "Meh, it's the Norwegians' oil" doesn't invalidate that fact, and such an argument is an act of deflection rather than an act of refutation. It is not a proper defense of the OP's claim therefore.

Let us next address the claim that since the GDP per capita PPP in many US states is higher compared to those of the Nordic countries, the standard of living and quality of life in those states is better. This is a complete misunderstanding of how GDP per capita figures are used to infer standards of living, and in fact it's a failure to even fully grasp what a GDP per capita figure is measuring in the first place.

As I have already said several times, changes in GDP per capita over time are what is used to approximate changes in the standard of living in a given location throughout a given time frame, the figure is not a direct measurement of the standard of living or the incomes of the people in the area of interest. It is therefore absolutely worthless, in the context of a discussion on relative standards of living, to point at a US state's GDP per capita PPP figure for a given year in an effort to assert that the state of interest has a higher standard of living than that of whatever Nordic country you want to compare it to. The best you can do is compare the rates of change in their figures within the same time frame to determine whose standard of living was improving or decreasing more strikingly over that period of time. I have already done this for Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the USA as a whole and illustrated that the standard of living, as inferred by GDP per capita PPP alone, is improving at a much higher rate in Sweden and Finland than in the United States. The standards of living in Norway and Denmark are relatively static, with Denmark's slightly increasing year to year.

In order to more reliably comment on the standard of living you must, in addition to GDP per capita, examine several factors such as per capita income, cost of living, infant mortality rates, literacy rates, proportions of the population completing each level of education, life expectancy, and so forth. You cannot simply rely on GDP per capita PPP figures to make an argument about standards of living and quality of life. These figures are wonderful for an inference about shifts in standards of living, but they are not direct measurements thereof and should thus not be used as the OP has used them.

It is thus that I again conclude that the OP has failed to adequately defend their argument. Argument 2 stands contested.

Argument 3: The United States is doomed to failure thanks to 100+ trillion dollars in debt owed to entitlements.
The OP finally provided a source for this claim, but the source does not say what the OP says. There is not projected, even at current taxation and funding rates, a 100+ trillion dollar entitlement liability by this date in 2015. The OP has miscalculated.

[AuSable River]

wrong

government is a self-serving scheme that benefits politicians, bureaucrats, and their cronies in the private and public sector in a quid pro quo scheme of preferential tax and regulatory policy in exchange for special interest votes and campaign contributions.

Businesses are self-serving entities that benefit CEOs and chairmen of said businesses, and their cronies who crush competition thanks to limited government power.

hence the large number of lobbyists in washington.

What? It's not due to the government, it's due to capitalism and a stupid populace.

do you seriously think they are lobbying washington with hundreds of billions of dollars in order to help society ????!!!!

Of course not, they are products of capitalism.

for the rest of you, it has been fun, good night.

[Mavorpen]

(Image)

for the rest of you, it has been fun, good night.

Running away again?

[Liriena]

Allow me to explain what I would rather entrust to the Free Market, and what I would rather entrust to the State (provided the State's anti-corruption systems are efficient to deal with individual cases of corruption in the system).

Education? State.
Healthcare? State.
Transport? State.
Water supply? State.
Energy supply? State.
Basic housing, food, clothing and other such products for people utterly incapable of purchasing by themselves, and only provided temporarily until said people begin to prosper? State (BTW: the key word is "basic", basic as in "generic" and rather low-quality. For anything better, work is the solution)

Everything else? Free Market! Yay!

If I remember anything else, I'll let you know.

[Liriena]

Businesses are self-serving entities that benefit CEOs and chairmen of said businesses, and their cronies who crush competition thanks to limited government power.

What? It's not due to the government, it's due to capitalism and a stupid populace.

Of course not, they are products of capitalism.

for the rest of you, it has been fun, good night.

The only one who could be any close to be accused of trolling in this thread is YOU!

Stop throwing random name-calling at us.

[Silent Majority]

government is a self-serving scheme that benefits politicians, bureaucrats, and their cronies in the private and public sector in a quid pro quo scheme of preferential tax and regulatory policy in exchange for special interest votes and campaign contributions.

None of those are inherent to any government, it is possible for a government to exist without corruption, the influence of special interest groups can be limited, and while politicians often rely on campaign contributions from various groups, it is the people who decide if they stay in office or not, and I think people are more intelligent than you give them credit.

hence the large number of lobbyists in washington.

do you seriously think they are lobbying washington with hundreds of billions of dollars in order to help society ????!!!!

I imagine many of them believe they are, and some of them do legitimately advocate for causes that benefit society although those lobbyists don't tend to be as well funded.

naive = statist on the outside.

corrupt = statist on the inside

poor = statist on the outside

privledged = statist on the inside.

You yourself have said that you are not an anarchist, which by definition means you are a statist.

[Wirbel]

The solution is to allow the contributors to benefit and the ones who do not wish to contribute to miss out.

[Liriena]

The solution is to allow the contributors to benefit and the ones who do not wish to contribute to miss out.

Really good idea...but what about those who CAN'T contribute (at least, not with money)?

[Wirbel]

Allow me to explain what I would rather entrust to the Free Market, and what I would rather entrust to the State (provided the State's anti-corruption systems are efficient to deal with individual cases of corruption in the system).

Education? State.
Healthcare? State.
Transport? State.
Water supply? State.
Energy supply? State.
Basic housing, food, clothing and other such products for people utterly incapable of purchasing by themselves, and only provided temporarily until said people begin to prosper? State (BTW: the key word is "basic", basic as in "generic" and rather low-quality. For anything better, work is the solution)

Everything else? Free Market! Yay!

If I remember anything else, I'll let you know.

Education? Free Market but sometimes State (If those willing to learn have access to education, the rest can be provided. (Good Education= Easy to get job))
Healthcare? Free Market.
Transport? Free Market.
Water supply? Free Market.
Energy supply? Free Market.
Basic housing, food, clothing and other such products for people utterly incapable of purchasing by themselves, and only provided temporarily until said people begin to prosper?See Education
Defense? State. To protect to common people, all of them need to pay a little bit of money. That adds up to alot, allowing for them to be protected. But again, Education can provide many things- including new weapons.

[Silent Majority]

The solution is to allow the contributors to benefit and the ones who do not wish to contribute to miss out.

That wouldn't work. The wealthy don't use many public services, so they wouldn't have much to lose by not contributing, but those public services couldn't function without the wealthy.

In addition many of the people who do use public services are poor, and oftentimes don't pay taxes, because they cannot afford to.

[Wirbel]

The solution is to allow the contributors to benefit and the ones who do not wish to contribute to miss out.

That wouldn't work. The wealthy don't use many public services, so they wouldn't have much to lose by not contributing, but those public services couldn't function without the wealthy.

In addition many of the people who do use public services are poor, and oftentimes don't pay taxes, because they cannot afford to.

Poor people can contribute. Some of them are only poor because they don't wish to contribute.

[Wirbel]

The solution is to allow the contributors to benefit and the ones who do not wish to contribute to miss out.

That wouldn't work. The wealthy don't use many public services, so they wouldn't have much to lose by not contributing, but those public services couldn't function without the wealthy.

In addition many of the people who do use public services are poor, and oftentimes don't pay taxes, because they cannot afford to.

Incentive: You get protected from massive enemy nation

[Wirbel]

That wouldn't work. The wealthy don't use many public services, so they wouldn't have much to lose by not contributing, but those public services couldn't function without the wealthy.

In addition many of the people who do use public services are poor, and oftentimes don't pay taxes, because they cannot afford to.

Incentive: You get protected from massive enemy nation

A rich person's money cannot buy them a world class military with nuclear weapons.

[Silent Majority]

That wouldn't work. The wealthy don't use many public services, so they wouldn't have much to lose by not contributing, but those public services couldn't function without the wealthy.

In addition many of the people who do use public services are poor, and oftentimes don't pay taxes, because they cannot afford to.

Poor people can contribute. Some of them are only poor because they don't wish to contribute.

Newsflash: being poor sucks, no one wants to be poor.

[Wirbel]

Poor people can contribute. Some of them are only poor because they don't wish to contribute.

Newsflash: being poor sucks, no one wants to be poor.

The way out of that is to get work.

[Silent Majority]

Newsflash: being poor sucks, no one wants to be poor.

The way out of that is to get work.

There are plenty of poor people with jobs. Hell there are plenty of poor people with multiple jobs.

[Liriena]

That wouldn't work. The wealthy don't use many public services, so they wouldn't have much to lose by not contributing, but those public services couldn't function without the wealthy.

In addition many of the people who do use public services are poor, and oftentimes don't pay taxes, because they cannot afford to.

Poor people can contribute. Some of them are only poor because they don't wish to contribute.

First: Of course, I must ask for a source.

Second: That's pretty fucking illogical, especially in your ideal world with no welfare.

[Mavorpen]

Newsflash: being poor sucks, no one wants to be poor.

The way out of that is to get work.

Whut?