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So...why are all first-world democracies, socialized democracies?

Why are all first-world democracies, socialized democracies?

  • It's just a coincidence, an accident of economics.

    Votes: 1 4.5%

  • These are just lies fed to us by the liberal media!

    Votes: 3 13.6%

  • Yes, certain socialized programs DO benefit a democracy's economic health.

    Votes: 18 81.8%
  • Total voters
    22
Glen Contrarian said:
I'd love to eliminate the tax shelters and cut the tax paperwork - of course I would! But the idea that we will get more tax revenue by lowering the tax rates is, as George H. W. Bush so eloquently (and accurately) stated, "voodoo economics".
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i will have you know thats is what Reagan did.....worked to eliminate tax shelters, by the 1986 tax reform act, ...however we are back to square 1 again.


every time taxs are cut, revenue falls at first by about a year or two, however by year three taxes are back to pre tax cut levels, and then they surpass them, reagan almost doubled treasury revenue with his plan...however congress continued to spend more money.
 
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Glen Contrarian said:
There are three observations:

(1) ALL first-world democracies are generally socialized, and have big government, high effective taxes, and strong regulation, whereas
(2) NO first-world nations at all meet the conservative demands of zero socialism, small government, low taxes, and weak (if any) regulation. And
(3) ALL nations which DO have small governments, low taxes, and weak regulations ARE third-world nations.

If including socialist programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Head Start, free public schools and the like are (as conservative pundits claim) a sure way to the economic dustbin of history, why is it that America (and the British Commonwealth before us) started down this road eighty years ago (FDR's New Deal) and we've been the most successful nations in human history? Is it just an accident or coincidence? Or does the inclusion of such socialist programs actually contribute to a nation's economic health?
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The missing vote was:
"Because it's easier to bribe the populace with gold from the treasury"
 
Boo Radley said:
I'm not sure that's evidence, what people say. But I did say I might not argue with you on it.
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in the world you have

monarchy..meaning a ruler...who is surrounded by his own men.

you have oligarchies,. which is rule by a few.

democracy which is supposed be rule by the people, however it is not because it degenerates into rule of a few, because faction takes over and rules as the elite.

a republic is rule by law, not by the will of the people......which their are no true republics in the world anymore......the last one ended in 1913.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Wow. You go through that whole argument pointing out this law or that law...and you have zero clue as to what it's really like. You don't know, and you can't know.

Tell you what - why don't you find an immigrant from a third-world nation and try telling him what life is like there. Oh, he might agree with you to your face to make you feel better and to avoid confrontation...but inside he'll be calling you an idiot.
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I am pointing out the actual situation of property rights in the Philippines, and you ignored it because it runs contrary to your ideological bias. You are the definition of a fool.
 
Lakryte said:
Just because something happens while a particular person is in power doesn't mean that person in power deserves credit or blame. Your argument is one big fallacy from the start.

Second, Hitler's leadership did not cause Germany to prosper. It did, however, result in the death of millions of Jews, disabled people, and gay men and women.
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The problem with your claim that the leader doesn't deserve the credit for how well his nation improves would require that leaders have zero impact at all on their nation's well-being - so why even have elections? Why have politicians at all, if they have zero impact on the nation's well-being?

In other words, your argument is a fail - you really don't understand the dynamics of leadership, of the mechanics of how leadership can steer a nation to prosperity or to ruin.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
I'm not asking them to pay for 'my desires'. I'm asking them to pay their fair share of the taxes that are necessary to provide and maintain the infrastructure of this nation...especially when the rich ALWAYS use more of our nation's infrastructure per person than the rest of us do. Use more of the infrastructure, pay more in taxes. What the heck is wrong with that?
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First, your assumption that the rich always use more of the infrastructure is bogus and made up. Many of the rich send their kids to private schools for starters. And the rich are less likely to use public transportation.

Second, even if the rich always use public infrastructure more, the already pay more in taxes anyway. If everyone pays a flat tax of 10%, the rich will be paying more in taxes. Aman making $10k will pay $1k in taxes, and a woman making $1 million will pay $100k in taxes--100 times more than the poorer man.

You are merely asking the rich to pay a higher percentage of their income to taxes to provide and maintain your desires. You can try to spin it all you want, but that's what you're asking. At least be honest about it.
 
TurtleDude said:
liberalism these days tends to be a quest to justify taking from others and pretending the common good, rather than envy is the motivation

the top 5% pay more income taxes than the rest of the country. they do more the enough
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of course they pay more. The "bottom 99%" has nothing more to be taken!

Yet it is clearly still not enough. I can just drive out 10 miles to see the state's infrastructure falling apart and that 50:1 student teacher ratio isn't getting fixed on its own
 
chromium said:
of course they pay more. The "bottom 99%" has nothing more to be taken!

Yet it is clearly still not enough. I can just drive out 10 miles to see the state's infrastructure falling apart and that 50:1 student teacher ratio isn't getting fixed on its own
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that's bs saying ALL of those in the bottom 99% cannot pay more taxes
 
Glen Contrarian said:
The problem with your claim that the leader doesn't deserve the credit for how well his nation improves would require that leaders have zero impact at all on their nation's well-being - so why even have elections? Why have politicians at all, if they have zero impact on the nation's well-being?

In other words, your argument is a fail - you really don't understand the dynamics of leadership, of the mechanics of how leadership can steer a nation to prosperity or to ruin.
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Wow, you really have trouble comprehending things like basic logic. Let's review my claim:

Just because something happens while a particular person is in power doesn't mean that person in power deserves credit or blame.

You then took that claim, and interpreted it to mean the following:

"A person in power never deserves credit or blame for anything that happens while they are in power."

Your interpretation of my argument is totally invalid. The statement that a person in power does not necessarily deserve credit or blame is not the same as the statement that the person in power never deserves credit or blame.
 
ernst barkmann said:
i will have you know thats is what Reagan did.....worked to eliminate tax shelters, by the 1986 tax reform act, ...however we are back to square 1 again.

every time taxs are cut, revenue falls at first by about a year or two, however by year three taxes are back to pre tax cut levels, and then they surpass them, reagan almost doubled treasury revenue with his plan...however congress continued to spend more money.
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If you want to talk about Reagan, you need to note he had a large tax cut in 1981 then a series of tax increases through 1987. Plus, tax revenue increases with population growth, economic growth that happens during rising and falling tax rates, and inflation, and inflation was high during some of the Reagan years. So saying that revenue recovers after tax rate cuts isn't saying much - the question is whether revenues are higher or lower than they'd been without the tax rate cuts. Bottom line is when tax rates are raised, tax revenues rise faster than when tax rates are cut.

Basically, to have sustainably low rates, government must have sustainably low spending. We can't cut tax rates to fund expanding government.
 
ernst barkmann said:
you seemed to me more concerned about what you can receive , then your own liberty and making your own way in the world.
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You seem to me to be a bit too apt to make assumptions about people with whom you have disagreements.

I am retired Navy, 100% service disabled (partly due to a major head injury that gives me vertigo often enough that I can't hold down a regular job), but I am still allowed to work if I can do so. I easily qualify for a disabled sticker, but I refuse to get one - I can still walk, dammit. I have never drawn unemployment.

I have my own small business right now - I'm there right now. It's selling plane tickets, parcel services, and money remittance. I'm not making a profit yet, but I'm helping people get tickets and parcel services at better prices than they generally get elsewhere.

At home we have a medically-fragile Foster child who's been with us over fifteen years - trach, g-tube, seizure disorders, and more, all from fetal drug syndrome. We had quite a few other medically-fragile Foster children along the way - including (among others) a low-functioning autistic, one with spinal muscular atrophy, and one with fetal alcohol syndrome with pretty much the same conditions as the one we have with us now.

At home we also care for an elderly woman who was born in Mexico, whose mother married an American soldier who was with US troops hunting down Pancho Villa.

I make enough on my retirement and disability that my wife and I could leave tomorrow to go overseas and live fairly well...but we have responsibilities here, people who depend on us for support and guidance.

So...am I still a good-for-nothing lazy bum?
 
Lakryte said:
You are merely asking the rich to pay a higher percentage of their income to taxes to provide and maintain your desires. You can try to spin it all you want, but that's what you're asking. At least be honest about it.
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Yes and i'm not just asking

All i see is crying from the mega wealthy. They refuse to acknowledge that if they had not been born into wealth, they would almost certainly not have arrived at this position. I therefore see no reason they *shouldn't* be taxed disproportionately

While plenty of the lower-middle class that work their asses off can't even afford to attend interview opportunities, the wealthy are busy sending their kids to study abroad in australia and internships at i-banks in hong kong. Don't get me started on the mediterranean cruise during spring break either, while others get to work in the cafeteria. All we seek is to balance things out

Yes, life is uncontrollably unfair at times (4 year olds with cancer and other tragedies) but who is making it so unfair in these comparisons? Most definitely the profiteers
 
TurtleDude said:
that's bs saying ALL of those in the bottom 99% cannot pay more taxes
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Of course i'm generalizing. However there is one constant truth in this equation: The top 1% by definition CAN pay more in taxes

But i understand it's easier to live with for someone born into such privilege, as almost all of the top 1% are, to not have to concede that they didn't earn everything they have
 
Lakryte said:
Ironic that you say that, because the argument I was responding to (that the steam engine would have existed and spread without free markets) is also a hypothetical. I guess hypotheticals are facts when socialists use them, right?
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Well neither claims are facts. However, what his claim has, that yours doesn't, is a list of examples of products that have existed and spread without free markets, evidence that his claim is feasible (if not provable).

Your claim is completely empty, nevermind a fact.
 
chromium said:
Of course i'm generalizing. However there is one constant truth in this equation: The top 1% by definition CAN pay more in taxes
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and politicians claim that to justify their pandering to everyone else

I have no use for the "from each according to their ability" nonsense
 
Glen Contrarian said:
You seem to me to be a bit too apt to make assumptions about people with whom you have disagreements.

I am retired Navy, 100% service disabled (partly due to a major head injury that gives me vertigo often enough that I can't hold down a regular job), but I am still allowed to work if I can do so. I easily qualify for a disabled sticker, but I refuse to get one - I can still walk, dammit. I have never drawn unemployment.

I have my own small business right now - I'm there right now. It's selling plane tickets, parcel services, and money remittance. I'm not making a profit yet, but I'm helping people get tickets and parcel services at better prices than they generally get elsewhere.

At home we have a medically-fragile Foster child who's been with us over fifteen years - trach, g-tube, seizure disorders, and more, all from fetal drug syndrome. We had quite a few other medically-fragile Foster children along the way - including (among others) a low-functioning autistic, one with spinal muscular atrophy, and one with fetal alcohol syndrome with pretty much the same conditions as the one we have with us now.

At home we also care for an elderly woman who was born in Mexico, whose mother married an American soldier who was with US troops hunting down Pancho Villa.

I make enough on my retirement and disability that my wife and I could leave tomorrow to go overseas and live fairly well...but we have responsibilities here, people who depend on us for support and guidance.

So...am I still a good-for-nothing lazy bum?
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i did not call you a lazy bum, because until now i knew nothing about your life, however you seem to think our federal government , is a benefactor for the people and it is not, its only here to secure rights.

you are a vet, fine so am i, i believe in the government taking care of those that have served this nation, but again government is not a free lunch counter, for just anyone who has not created the life they desire.
 
chromium said:
Yes and i'm not just asking

All i see is crying from the mega wealthy. They refuse to acknowledge that if they had not been born into wealth, they would almost certainly not have arrived at this position. I therefore see no reason they *shouldn't* be taxed disproportionately

While plenty of the lower-middle class that work their asses off can't even afford to attend interview opportunities, the wealthy are busy sending their kids to study abroad in australia and internships at i-banks in hong kong. Don't get me started on the mediterranean cruise during spring break either, while others get to work in the cafeteria. All we seek is to balance things out

Yes, life is uncontrollably unfair at times (4 year olds with cancer and other tragedies) but who is making it so unfair in these comparisons? Most definitely the profiteers
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The majority of the wealthy are not in fact born into it. But even if they were, so what? Someone in their family was successful, and they get to reap the benefits. Nothing wrong with that.
 
Nilly said:
Well neither claims are facts. However, what his claim has, that yours doesn't, is a list of examples of products that have existed and spread without free markets, evidence that his claim is feasible (if not provable).

Your claim is completely empty, nevermind a fact.
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He didn't list any such examples.
 
ernst barkmann said:
i will have you know thats is what Reagan did.....worked to eliminate tax shelters, by the 1986 tax reform act, ...however we are back to square 1 again.


every time taxs are cut, revenue falls at first by about a year or two, however by year three taxes are back to pre tax cut levels, and then they surpass them, reagan almost doubled treasury revenue with his plan...however congress continued to spend more money.
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Reagan? You mean that old Keynesian?

There is a supply-side accounting for the walk-back of roughly one-third of the '81 tax cuts. It has to do with the incremental timing of the cuts as well as the structure of the overall code. The Cato Institute's Daniel J. Mitchell says it's "hard to pinpoint" when the Reagan tax cuts actually kicked in:

The tax burden may have actually increased in 1981, since the parts of the Reagan tax cuts that took effect that year were offset by the impact of bracket creep (the tax code was not indexed to protect against inflation until the mid-1980s). There was a bigger tax rate reduction in 1982, but there was still bracket creep, as well as previously-legislated payroll tax increases (enacted during the Carter years). TEFRA also was enacted in 1982, which largely focused on undoing some of the business tax relief in Reagan's 1981 plan. People have argued whether the repeal of promised tax relief is the same as a tax increase, but that's not terribly important for this analysis. What does matter is that the tax burden did not fall much (if at all) in Reagan's first year and might not have changed too much in 1982.

In 1983, by contrast, it's fairly safe to say the next stage of tax rate reductions was substantially larger than any concomitant tax increases.
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The problem with this analysis, it seems to me, is that it fails to account for the Reagan tax increases that were enacted after 1983, right up to 1987's Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. This is to say nothing of the notorious tax hikes that occurred in 1990 under the first President Bush and in 1993 under President Clinton, who had paired his deficit reduction efforts with economic stimulus.
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Lakryte said:
I am pointing out the actual situation of property rights in the Philippines, and you ignored it because it runs contrary to your ideological bias. You are the definition of a fool.
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Hm. I've got a house there, a few score family members, my oldest son graduated college there and owned a business there, my youngest son graduated high school there, I've lived there myself...but you know more about property rights in the Philippines than I do, even though you've never been there.

Riiiiiiiiight. To the others who read this, I don't think there's anything more I could possibly say to you than what you've just said about yourself.

You can have the last word - I won't reply.
 
TurtleDude said:
and politicians claim that to justify their pandering to everyone else

I have no use for the "from each according to their ability" nonsense
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Of course you have no use for it, since you've never been vulnerable to poverty

Hypothetical and all that, but it's plain to see why you'd feel different had you grown up on food stamps, a "handout" that in reality meant living primarily off ramen noodles, friends living in a duplex with 5 siblings and a single parent who's never around due to working 2 jobs and hell, there was even a local kid whose parents had to beg for donations for a life saving treatment. Seeing an alternative such as forcing, say, supreme asshole ted cruz to pay for medical care for children instead, i will opt for higher taxes every time.

Why would politicians pander to it? Because it's astonishing the majority would even contemplate putting up with such disparity
 
Lakryte said:
The majority of the wealthy are not in fact born into it. But even if they were, so what? Someone in their family was successful, and they get to reap the benefits. Nothing wrong with that.
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I was just arguing about billionaires with someone, which your article isn't devoted to. Perhaps i should have clarified. While a 'millionaire' may be able to afford more taxes, i'm not any delusion that his wealth alone can fix the roads, bridges, and deplorable schools in this state

But yes, there is certainly something wrong with inherited wealth, while others struggle to get by

Notably, the article's definition of "working" but excluding inheritance is kind of a joke. Mitt Romney might fall into that category, but he created this wealth for himself by taking advantage of the connections his family had. To suggest he rose from poverty or something is quite misleading. I mean someone could inherit $995,000 and earn $5000 and by that article's standards, they are a "working millionaire"
 
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ernst barkmann said:
i did not call you a lazy bum, because until now i knew nothing about your life, however you seem to think our federal government , is a benefactor for the people and it is not, its only here to secure rights.

you are a vet, fine so am i, i believe in the government taking care of those that have served this nation, but again government is not a free lunch counter, for just anyone who has not created the life they desire.
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Do the words "promote the general welfare" ring a bell?

Government is not meant to be a 'free lunch counter' - but it costs the taxpayer LESS to pay to keep fed and housed those who are down on their luck thanks to getting laid off for whatever reason, than it does to pay for what happens to those who didn't have access to a social safety net and so became homeless and thus part of the criminal element.

It's like I keep saying - you pay anyway. You either pay more taxes to help those who are down on their luck...or you pay more taxes for what happens when there is no help for those who are down on their luck...but you will pay anyway.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Reagan? You mean that old Keynesian?
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however you feel about Reagan, he sought to rid government of tax shelters, because again what is the point of having high taxes, but having shelters to lower them, why not get rid of shelters, and just lower the tax, to make the tax code easy/simple.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Do the words "promote the general welfare" ring a bell?

Government is not meant to be a 'free lunch counter' - but it costs the taxpayer LESS to pay to keep fed and housed those who are down on their luck thanks to getting laid off for whatever reason, than it does to pay for what happens to those who didn't have access to a social safety net and so became homeless and thus part of the criminal element.

It's like I keep saying - you pay anyway. You either pay more taxes to help those who are down on their luck...or you pay more taxes for what happens when there is no help for those who are down on their luck...but you will pay anyway.
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the general welfare is for the union as a whole ......not the people.

please point to a clause in the constitution which grants the congress power to makes laws giving people things.


“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”― James Madison

"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government― James Madison
 
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