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The Powers of Government ...

Because they're working from anti-liberty definitions of the words "equitable" and "fair."

Puh-leez, enough of the "liberty" BS!

There are 510 million people living in the EU under a Social Democracy and they labor no less free than the 323 million Americans in the US.

I've lived around Europe since transferred here to work from the states in the 1970s. My children have university degrees that cost me more room 'n board than tuition (about 900€ a year). I have a first-class National HealthCare System that is half the cost per capita of the US entirely government subsidized, and with a longer lifespan as well. See here:
HC - Average costs versus Life Span.jpg

And I have a selection of excellent French wines to boot ...
 
Puh-leez, enough of the "liberty" BS!

I find it . . . well, many things, I guess, including hilarious, that the modern "progressive" left is getting more and more open about its contempt for liberty.


There are 510 million people living in the EU under a Social Democracy and they feel no less free than the 323 million Americans in the US.

"Feel." :roll: Doesn't matter what they "feel." A gilded cage is still a cage. A happy pet is still a pet. "Well, I wouldn't want to do that anyway" isn't any statement of real freedom; it's just a statement of being content with the length of your leash.

I've lived around Europe since transferred here to work from the states in the 1970s. My children have university degrees that cost me more room 'n board than tuition (about 900€ a year). I have a first-class National HealthCare System that is half the cost per capita of the US entirely government subsidized, and with a longer lifespan as well. See here:
View attachment 67209355

And I have a selection of excellent French wines to boot ...

. . . . so what?
 
Iwell, many things, I guess, including hilarious, that the modern "progressive" left is getting more and more open about its contempt for liberty.

And I think you are confusing "liberty" with the right to do anything you damn well please.

That sort of ideology is good for those retreating to the back-woods of Alaska, and I suggest you go there to live. They have very little dependence upon any sort of communal civilization.

Otoh, most of us down here in the "lower-48" have a market-economy existence in which we all participate; that is, greatly distorted by a piece of legislation that the Reagan Administration snuck through Congress.

The consequence of which has been tragic upon the sharing of both Income and Net Worth (which is Wealth minus Income). This occurred since the US's present tax-rate structure was revised ever since Congress voted tax-rates as they are today in the early 1980s. We have in the US therefore, now 35 years onward, Grossly Unfair Income & Wealth Distribution.

This has been corroborated by two studies:
*Piketty's of historical income, where the 10Percenters (those taxpayers earning above $100K a year) obtain nearly half of all Income generated:
Income - Piketty History, 10Percenters.jpg, which feeds directly into

*This study of Weath Distribution:
Wealth - Share of Total Wealth.jpg
 
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Quite right! And it reflects a mentality of that epoch as well. Stop harping about the Constitution!

It's a good foundation but it is outdated and needs some serious revisions to bring America up to a status as a Social Democracy of and by the people - and not a bunch of rich plutocrats ... !

We're not a social democracy. Nor should we ever be. If you want to get rid of the plutocracy then simply get money out of politics. There is nothing in the Constitution that is "outdated", only "not wanted" by those that want to impose their will on others and are blocked from doing so by the Constitution.
 
One that revises:
*National Taxation and without a Flat-tax Rate, but one that is uniformly Progressive, and with a very high upper limit. The 30% upper-limit presently is "gift" to those would like the US to revert to the 18th century when Wealth was owned by a select few.

We already have a progressive tax. The poorer you are the less you have to pay. The richer you are the more you have to pay. And companies often pay 35%, not 30%. Not to mention each individual State has their own corporate tax added onto that 35%.

*The manner in which people vote without the antiquated "Electoral College" (that no other country on earth employs) but directly - One Person, One Vote and all votes tallied to determine clearly the winner without gerrymandering of electoral districts. The primary vote subventioned by the Federal government with a clear limit on "election donations" (say $10K per registered voter).

The EC does have its problems. But that is mainly due to gerrymandering. Get rid of that and the EC will work just fine. The way to get rid of that is to have a computer generate the lines based on area, not people. People drawing the lines is where the problem lies.

I can think of a few others, but the latter above would help enormously for "Truly Free Democracy" and not one owned by a plutocracy of the rich ...

We live in a Republic, not a Democracy. Democracies are nothing but mob rule. Mob rule ends up suppressing the minorities Rights every single time.
 
We're not a social democracy. Nor should we ever be. If you want to get rid of the plutocracy then simply get money out of politics. There is nothing in the Constitution that is "outdated", only "not wanted" by those that want to impose their will on others and are blocked from doing so by the Constitution.

Kindly explain how we "simply get money out of politics" given the SCOTUS position that money equals speech. Would they not deem any law that accomplishes the goal unconstitutional?
 
Kindly explain how we "simply get money out of politics" given the SCOTUS position that money equals speech. Would they not deem any law that accomplishes the goal unconstitutional?

SCOTUS needs to get its head out of its ass to be quite frank. Citizens United was a travesty. Corporations are not living beings and should not be considered as such. Living beings have Rights. Corporations do not. It should be brought before SCOTUS under those terms. Failing that. Make an Amendment. That IS why the Amendment process is there after all. ;)
 
We already have a progressive tax. The poorer you are the less you have to pay. The richer you are the more you have to pay. And companies often pay 35%, not 30%. Not to mention each individual State has their own corporate tax added onto that 35%.

Like most of the Replicant Right, you have no notion of "fairness". Key-concept - No discrimination based upon the state, condition, or quality of being fair, or free from bias or injustice; or evenhandedness

And in terms of taxation that means progressiveness from top to bottom, not just at the bottom. Our tax "progressiveness" stops at "the upper 40%" (who all benefit from a comparative flat-rate taxation):

Taxation - Total Effective Tax Rates (US) 2014.jpg

And many of us will not forget that Romney admitted to paying no more than 15% taxation during his election bid of 2008: Romney paid 14% effective tax rate in 2011. And he's not the only one - just the only one to admit it.

Upper-income taxation in America is a boondoggle for the rich, and the principle means of the "Income Gusher" that creates their Wealth, and since Wealth Minus Debt is Net Worth (from here):

Net_worth_and_financial_wealth.gif


Whereby, in terms of Net Worth, the top 20% of families own 89% of the total.

Uh, wow ... !
 
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From United in Our Delusions (by Tax Expert David Cay Johnston), this excerpt:

Taxes are central to wealth distribution, or redistribution,as we hear endlessly this election cycle. Soit would make sense that people who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 think very differently about the ideal distribution of wealth than people who voted for Sen. John Kerry. People who make a lot hold very different ideas than people who make a lot less, right?

Wrong. We don’t think differently. In fact, Americans think very much alike on wealth distribution. Amazingly alike.

High-income or low, Republican or Democrat, young or old, male or female, Bush voters or Kerry voters, Americans are united in what they believe is the ideal distribution of wealth. And they are just as united about what they imagine to be the distribution of wealth in America.

The problem is that neither the ideals we broadly share, nor our estimated distributions of wealth today, bear much relationship to reality.

And therein lies the explanation for how our nation became caught up in such a contentious, nasty, sometimes threatening, and potentially violent debate about tax policy. When it comes to wealth and taxes, the vast majority of Americans are modern Know-Nothings. The disconnect between belief and reality is being exploited by those who laugh all the way to the bank with their tax savings and the burdens they have subtly shifted off themselves and onto the rest of us.

The ideal wealth distribution chosen by the 5,522 people who took the online survey has the top fifth of Americans owning between 30 percent and 40 percent of the wealth.

That means Americans believe the ideal distribution of wealth is that of Sweden. Moreover, 90 percent of Republicans share that belief. (Actually,90.2 percent, as the survey coauthor, Prof. Daniel Ariely of Duke University, noted when we met to discuss his work.) The survey sample, with more than 10 times the 504 people often used in polls, is robust and credible. (For the report, see Doc 2010-21608.)

NB:"David Cay Johnston is a former tax reporter for The New York Times and teaches at Syracuse University Law School. He has written two books about taxes,Free Lunch and Perfectly Legal.A clever survey of 5,522 Americans by two behavioral scientists reveals remarkable, near-unanimous agreement on an issue central to our tax debate. But will we benefit from this discovery of widely shared values?"
NB2: And the principal reason we are living with the real potential of the Dork - one of the more prominent to have benefited from Lax Upper-income Taxation - to perhaps become PotUS.
NB3: May heaven help us if he does ...
 
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progressive tax laws are laws.

And truly progressive tax-laws do not exist in America.

Were they to exist, we would not have the great disparity of Wealth that we do today (from Domhoff here):

Actual_estimated_ideal_wealth_distribution.gif


The "Actual" above can only become the "Ideal" below if we get off our backsides and insist, by voting, for doing away with Income Disparity in America and a complete revision of its Tax Code.

Bernie was right (actually very Left): Making the Wealthy, Wall Street, and Large Corporations Pay their Fair Share
 
I'm praying you do. Need any cash?

Sarcasm becomes you so.

When I need "your cash", I 'll know where to ask.

I wouldn't want to be hanging off a tree till then ...
 
The EC does have its problems. But that is mainly due to gerrymandering. Get rid of that and the EC will work just fine..

Why should the EC work at all? (Yes, it's about time we rid ourselves of gerrymandering, an anachronism. I know of no such manipulation of the popular vote that exists in Europe - where Proportional Voting exists rather than our Plurality Voting system.

Thusly (from here):
PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION VOTING SYSTEMS

Proportional representation voting (PR) is the main rival to plurality-majority voting. Among advanced western democracies it has become the predominant voting system. For instance, in Western Europe, 21 of 28 countries use proportional representation, including Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The basic approach of proportional representation is simple: legislators are elected in multimember districts instead of single-member districts, and the number of seats that a party wins in an election is proportional to the amount of its support among voters. So if you have a 10-member district and the Republicans win 50% of the vote, they receive five of the ten seats. If the Democrats win 30% of the vote, they get three seats; and if a third party gets 20% of the vote, they win two seats.

VERY straightforward, patently verifiable, therefore "better".

There was a time when the automobile did not exist, and to get votes from various districts was very difficult. So the Electoral College was created to "represent the popular vote" to Washington.

That need no longer exists since at least the existence of the telephone ...
 
And I think you are confusing "liberty" with the right to do anything you damn well please.

That's not "confusing"; that's actually what it is.

lib·er·ty
[ˈlibərdē]
NOUN
the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views:
"compulsory retirement would interfere with individual liberty"
synonyms: independence · freedom · autonomy · sovereignty · [more]

the power or scope to act as one pleases:
"individuals should enjoy the liberty to pursue their own interests and preferences"
synonyms: freedom · independence · free rein · license · [more]

:roll:

Otoh, most of us down here in the "lower-48"

You're not in the "lower 48."

have a market-economy existence in which we all participate

Which you want to kill in the name of "equality" and "fairness."

that is, greatly distorted by a piece of legislation that the Reagan Administration snuck through Congress.

Whatever you think that means.

The consequence of which has been tragic upon the sharing of both Income and Net Worth (which is Wealth minus Income). This occurred since the US's present tax-rate structure was revised ever since Congress voted tax-rates as they are today in the early 1980s. We have in the US therefore, now 35 years onward, Grossly Unfair Income & Wealth Distribution.

This has been corroborated by two studies:
*Piketty's of historical income, where the 10Percenters (those taxpayers earning above $100K a year) obtain nearly half of all Income generated:
View attachment 67209376, which feeds directly into

*This study of Weath Distribution:
View attachment 67209377

And here you go, explaining exactly how you want to kill the market, and you want to kill economic freedom especially, due to your anti-liberty definitions of "fairness" and "equity." Which is what I said.
 
We live in a Republic, not a Democracy. Democracies are nothing but mob rule. Mob rule ends up suppressing the minorities Rights every single time.

You really need a dictionary.
Republic: a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.

And for your edification
Democracy: a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

Right, we've got both.

What we also have is an electorate the majority of which has not the slightest notion about what each of the above mean or how they work.

From the Atlantic, Why Civics Is About More Than Citizenship, here - an excerpt:

Even though all 50 states and the District of Columbia technically require some civic education, advocates say many districts don’t take those policies very seriously, and few states actually hold schools accountable for students’ civics’ outcomes. Just about a fourth of high-school seniors in 2014 scored “proficient” on the federal-government’s civics exam. Proficiency levels were equally lousy for eighth-graders. “U.S. performance has stayed the same.

Or should I say: Scores have stayed every bit as bad as the last time the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) took the pulse of history, civics, and geography in public and private schools,” wrote the Washington Post Writers Group columnist Esther Cepeda, who hosted the aforementioned seminar with reporters, earlier this year. As with standardized tests in general, the NAEP exam certainly isn’t the ideal way to gauge proficiency but it’s the only source of nationwide data.

And ultimately, surveys of American youth suggest that these test scores paint a pretty accurate picture of their civic literacy: A 2010 Pew Research study found that the vast majority of young adults struggle with basic questions about politics—who the next House speaker would be, for example. On a day like today—national Constitution and Citizenship Day—that makes for an especially discouraging reality.

And from "Pew Research" (Civic Engagement in the Digital Age):
Social networking sites are playing a more prominent role in politics—39% of Americans now engage in political activity on these sites

Many are getting involved in issues based on their discussions on social networking sites, and social network activism frequently spills over into other online and offline spaces

At the same time, these new channels do not appear to be altering the fundamental pattern that the well-educated and financially well-off are more likely to participate in civic life

But is the above enough? Given that a patently incompetent individual for the office could become a presidential candidate, and within a few percentage points today of that goal, I have the Deepest Doubts ....
 
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