There are men of vision who rise to heights of power and fame as they strive to realize their own destiny: George Soros has a vision for the world and the United States of an open-society with open borders and a system of wealth redistrubution, he wants to achieve this vision through his disciple Barack Obama.
George bases his vision on a primary premise of a global objective, a one world government. He refers to his concept of world government as an “open-society philosophy”. Of course the system requires a omnipotent god-like billionaire for it is a billionaire oligarchy system based loosely around a benevolent billionaire who is in charge of everything and knows what is best for the world. George is imminently qualified for the position, at least in his own mind, he definitely has the money and has considered himself a god for a long time; he has started implementing his plan by supporting a myriad of anti-American organizations and through his charismatic student and sycophant, Barack Obama.
One of the initial requirements for an open-society is open borders. He explains the reason for open borders in the February, 1997 “Atlantic Monthly”, in an article titled “‘The Capitalist Threat’:
“Societies derive their cohesion from shared values . . . religion, history, and tradition. When a society does not have boundaries where are the shared values to be found? . . . the concept of the open society itself.”
In the article Soros further expounds on his Social and economic theory in three main parts:
ECONOMIC STABILITY
ECONOMIC theory has managed to create an artificial world in which the participants’ preferences and the opportunities confronting participants are independent of each other, and prices tend toward an equilibrium that brings the two forces into balance. But in financial markets prices are not merely the passive reflection of independently given demand and supply; they also play an active role in shaping those preferences and opportunities. This reflexive interaction renders financial markets inherently unstable. Laissez-faire ideology denies the instability and opposes any form of government intervention aimed at preserving stability. History has shown that financial markets do break down, causing economic depression and social unrest. The breakdowns have led to the evolution of central banking and other forms of regulation. Laissez-faire ideologues like to argue that the breakdowns were caused by faulty regulations, not by unstable markets. There is some validity in their argument, because if our understanding is inherently imperfect, regulations are bound to be defective. But their argument rings hollow, because it fails to explain why the regulations were imposed in the first place. It sidesteps the issue by using a different argument, which goes like this: since regulations are faulty, unregulated markets are perfect.
SOCIAL DARWINISM
BY taking the conditions of supply and demand as given and declaring government intervention the ultimate evil, laissez-faire ideology has effectively banished income or wealth redistribution. I can agree that all attempts at redistribution interfere with the efficiency of the market, but it does not follow that no attempt should be made. The laissez-faire argument relies on the same tacit appeal to perfection as does communism. It claims that if redistribution causes inefficiencies and distortions, the problems can be solved by eliminating redistribution — just as the Communists claimed that the duplication involved in competition is wasteful, and therefore we should have a centrally planned economy. But perfection is unattainable. Wealth does accumulate in the hands of its owners, and if there is no mechanism for redistribution, the inequities can become intolerable. “Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.” Francis Bacon was a profound economist.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
LAISSEZ-FAIRE ideology shares some of the deficiencies of another spurious science, geopolitics. States have no principles, only interests, geopoliticians argue, and those interests are determined by geographic location and other fundamentals. This deterministic approach is rooted in an outdated nineteenth-century view of scientific method, and it suffers from at least two glaring defects that do not apply with the same force to the economic doctrines of laissez-faire. One is that it treats the state as the indivisible unit of analysis, just as economics treats the individual. There is something contradictory in banishing the state from the economy while at the same time enshrining it as the ultimate source of authority in international relations. But let that pass. There is a more pressing practical aspect of the problem. What happens when a state disintegrates? Geopolitical realists find themselves totally unprepared. That is what happened when the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia disintegrated. The other defect of geopolitics is that it does not recognize a common interest beyond the national interest.
Soros has invested heavily in groups that lobby to keep the borders open and is a major reason why the American borders are being over run in the United States, his adopted homeland.
The Open Society Institute is the cornerstone for the Soros Foundations Network, a group of Soros-funded organizations in more than 50 countries, which promote open-society concepts by influencing governmental policies.
The various branches and paid instrumentalities of the network include Democracy Alliance, MoveOn.org, America Coming Together, America Votes, The Center for American Progress, and other leftist front organizations, which advocate open borders for the United States — not for other nations but for the United States. These Soros-funded groups finance his camp followers, among them the Democratic Party, the National Organization of Women, abortion advocacy groups, various environmental groups, and last but not least, the increasingly powerful immigration special interest groups.
In 1979 the Open Society Institute was formulated by Soros as the nucleus of a group of Soros foundations that fund a network of individuals and organizations with tens of millions of dollars if they share the founder’s views and agenda. Here is a summary:
promoting the view that America is institutionally an oppressive nation
promoting the election of leftist political candidates throughout the United States
opposing virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by U.S. government, particularly the Patriot Act depicting American military actions as unjust, unwarranted, and immoral
promoting open borders, mass immigration, and a watering down of current immigration laws
promoting a dramatic expansion of social welfare programs funded by ever-escalating taxes
promoting social welfare benefits and amnesty for illegal aliens
defending the civil rights and liberties of suspected anti-American terrorists and their abetters
financing the recruitment and training of future activist leaders of the political Left
advocating America’s unilateral disarmament and/or a steep reduction in its military spending
opposing the death penalty in all circumstances
promoting socialized medicine in the United States
promoting the tenets of radical environmentalism, whose ultimate goal, as writer Michael Berliner has explained, is “not clean air and clean water, [but] rather … the demolition of technological/industrial civilization”
bringing American foreign policy under the control of the United Nations
promoting racial and ethnic preferences in academia and the business world alike
promoting taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand
advocating stricter gun-control measures
advocating the legalization of marijuana
Soros was born a Jew in Hungary in 1930, his original name was Gyorgy Schwartz, although by providing his own biographical information, most of it is dubious and unverified like that of Obama. In ’36 the family name was changed to Soros (Hungarian for “Successor”- Esperanto for “Soar”) to avoid persecution by the National Socialists. His father was a follower of Esperanto, a language designed to serve as a one-world language, it was invented by Ludwik Zamenhof, a Polish Doctor in 1887. Based on Indo-European languages, the movement still has adherents today.
George, a second generation Esperanto survived the National Socialists by turning in his fellow Jews to the Nazis. After the war he survived the Communists until he defected to the West during an Esperanto Youth Conference held abroad in 1946.
He attended the London School of Economics and was heavily influenced by an Austrian-English PhD of science Karl Popper. He graduated in ’52 and came to America in ’56 to work on Wall Street. His personal wealth is estimated between 7 and 11 billion. Quantum Fund, based offshore, one of his many companies beyond the range of US tax liability and is the bulk of the Soros fortune. A word of warning, keeping offshore accounts is only legal for Soros.
Despite the many flaws he has found in the founding documents, Soros maintains that the United States is the best example of an open-society. He maintains that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are based on the philosophy of the Enlightenment; however they don’t allow for the limitations of the human mind and modern skepticism; especially, since there is no absolute truth nor certainty in life.
In his 1997 Atlantic Monthly article, he wrote, “The Declaration of Independence may be taken as a pretty good approximation of the principles of an open society, but instead of claiming those principles are self-evident, we ought to say that they are consistent with our fallibility.”
He adds that the open society concept is highly sophisticated, and much more difficult to work with than the more primitive beliefs, such as, “my country (or my company or my family), right or wrong.”
The Enlightenment is a concept born in the 18th century Europe, it links a system of aesthetics, ethics, and logic with faith and piety. Preceded by the Age of Reason, Enlightenment is considered the driving force that brought Europe out of the Dark Ages and the consequential development of nation states, science, social reform, and political theory. The French and American Revolutions borrowed heavily from the concepts Enlightenment and Reason and led to the present day secular political systems. Open-society followers reject Enlightenment concepts of rationalism while grasping for its secularism in the reformation of nation-states under the auspices of a benevolent and omnipotent billionaire to guide them through the difficult stages of social and political engineering.
Open-society advocates would reinterpret the U.S. Constitution to better suit the “age of fallibility,” which no longer recognizes unalienable rights or divine providence. The Soros open-society concept requires that the United States be removed as a superpower and that the American people be subjected to the will and wants of all the world’s people.
To support his belief that the human mind cannot fathom ultimate truth and reality, Soros apparently advocates the deconstruction of nations by educating the masses in open-society jargon.
His open society comes off as a bastardization of socialism and libertarianism. This mixed brew includes more taxes (but not on the Soros fortune), increased government spending, open borders, immigration entitlements for legal and illegal aliens, devaluing citizenship but promoting feminism, free abortions, affirmative action, and sex and gender rights. Incongruously he would lessen government intrusion while eliminating “excessive individualism.” Essential to an open society is destruction of the nation-state authority, family structure, and religious beliefs, thus rendering national culture, heritage, and ethos meaningless.
It is fairly easy to visualize our President as a follower of Soros as are most of the Liberal bottom feeders that exist solely because of his money. The lure of being a ruling Elite is the opiate of the pathetic personality that craves power and control. The actions of our President have only destabilized and weakened America, true to the Soros template, Obama continues to destroy our country with his fantasies of Wealth Redistribution and an open society with no borders, while the proud nature of our national spirit is diluted with illegal alien freeloaders and parasites who flock here to milk our entitlement programs until we are driven into a nameless faceless society pleading for handouts from the Obama/Soros organization of world governance. There is no doubt that they know how to destroy a national identity; they hope to have us reduced to a country without borders or sovereignty within two more years. He will program the ignorant and uneducated illegal aliens with the jargon of open society, open borders, and wealth redistribution until they become fluent in the jingoism and a powerful political force; they have nothing to lose and everything to gain while they dilute our national identity with the entitlement syndrome. With this knowledge of the true nature of our president and his benefactor, it becomes imperative to resist President Obama and the Obama/Soros efforts at world governance or give them the country and the world to remodel as they see fit.
A professional horseman for over 50 years, Skook continues to work with horses. Skook has finished an historical novel, Fifty Thousand Years, that traces a mitochondrial line of DNA from 50,000 years ago to the present. The story follows a line of courageous women, from the Ice Ages to the present, as they meet the challenges of survival with grit and creativity. These are not women who whimper of being victims, they meet the challenges of survival as women who use their abilities without excuses or remorse, these women are winners, they are our ancestors.
Fifty Thousand Years is available in paperback and e-book, it is getting great reviews. You can purchase a copy here; Visit me on Facebook.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dylantheauthor
@Tom:
Such as?
Tax policy, in and of itself, is not irrevocable.
Tax policy can be, and is currently being used as a form of wealth redistribution ie Socialism.
Question for you: How do you attempt to square a progressive tax system with the principles of equal justice and equal protection?
Obama told anyone who was paying attention that he was going to “fundamentally transform” the US. His actions during his time in office so far indicate that is precisely what he intends to do.
Fortunately Nov is right around the corner and, with control of at least one Congressional chamber changing hands, the economic destruction and the wild spending spree will soon be coming to a halt.
Yes. I believe that raising taxes on any income category, especially during a deep recession, is the absolute opposite of the approach that needs to be taken.
Question for you: Under what widely accepted economic theory does one find it acceptable to increase taxes during times of economic downturn?
The tax brackets that will be affected by these code changes are not limited to just the “super wealthy”.
All tax brackets at, or above, $250K per year will all be affected. The $250K plus category includes a huge number of small businesses and Chapter S corporations. Small businesses are the economic engine of the economy. That is where job creation occurs. Taxing those businesses at a higher rate will result in less hiring or, perhaps, layoffs. The creation of additional 1099 regulations like those contained in the ObamaCare bill will force small businesses to spend money on regulations compliance rather than payroll, resulting in less hiring or, perhaps, layoffs.
HALF…are getting by Scott free…yeah, that’s a problem for me:
Question for you: How much is enough for you? Should the upper 1% or 5% be paying more than 60.6 or 40.4% respectively? Why should their dollars be taxed in a confiscatorial fashion while you, presumably, are being taxed at a lower rate?
Now, Tom, you and I both know that tax policy is used constantly as a means to encourage or discourage a specific behavior.
For example: When the gov’t wanted more people to purchase homes what did he do? He gave $8000 tax credits to first time buyers.
When the gov’t wanted to discourage smoking what did they do? That’s right….they raised taxes.
When the gov’t decides that they wanted to prevent “excessive bonuses” for Wall Street execs what did they do? Right again….they proposed taxing those bonuses at 99% or so.
So, yes, taxation is used as a means by which to control consumer behavior, and, if you’re honest about it, it’s not just those on the right who do so.
My Geese, Golden Eggs, & Government post goes into great detail about the steps that people will take in response to taxation.
Those 18 and 19 year olds will likely stay right there at home with Mom and Dad because the current employment situation for that particular age bracket, especially those with no experience, is more dire than the general population.
Of course not. The human desire to be successful will remain. The willingness to work hard, investing time, money, and risk in order to achieve will be squelched through the Law of Diminishing Returns when taxation influences people to strive for, and achieve, less than their full potential.
In fact, history shows that tax revenue holds steadily at 18% of GDP regardless of taxation rates. That proves that people will engage in avoidance behaviors when rates become onerous.
Finally, before I sign off for the night, here are some charts for you which reflect the success of the Bush tax cuts and demonstrate why they should be extended.
@ Randy,
Your note on “lawyers in our government” should be underlined and heeded, since lawyers have filled the majority of Congressional seats for 200 years, and moved the levers to their advantage, or to the advantage of their “handlers.” A great many even reached the White House, including the current occupant.
There are many reasons for this, too many to iterate here, but a wise Philosopher and a Founding Father of the United States had some prescient thoughts on the subject. . . . .
In 1788 James Madison warned:
“The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?
Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.”
@ Randy, very interesting response. Thank you for being so candid about your personal situation.
@Aye
Where to start? Obama is a: secret-Muslim/non-citizen/non-graduate of Columbia/devoted follower of Black Liberation Theology/atheist/proponent of World Governance/ etc. I am not stating that you personally are a proponent of any of these, but they’re all over your website, in the articles or comments, and can any actually be proven? Why, if they are all plausible, do various people on the Right support mutually exclusive theories, such as Muslim/atheist/back liberation Christian? Does it make sense, if any of them were true, that there would still be competing theories? It doesn’t say much for those involved that they can’t even settle on a religious smear.
I don’t consider a progressive tax to be a violation of equality under the law, if that’s where you’re going. And I think a true flat tax would be a disaster. You talk about taxation as a disincentive to work, can you imagine how a person who made $15,000 would feel if he had to pay 20% or so back to the government? That’s money that would go to food, clothing, rent – life’s necessities. Practicalities, aside, I know this is all about being “fair”. But how do you account for the government’s investment and contribution to person’s wealth? Does infrastructure count for nothing? Markets? Law and order? Police, fire, military, trade law? How about all the money poured by the government into research? How could one ever quantify the advances in computing and astrophysics during the Cold War alone, and how much private wealth has subsequently been generated? Wealth is not created in a vacuum. The proposition that the wealthy owe nothing back to the land that gave them such an extraordinary opportunity seems mean and miserly to me.
Aye, I’m still confused on this point. Do you believe every President with a progressive tax program was redistributing wealth and therefore a Socialist? Even the ones who had higher tax rates at the top than Obama, such as Reagan?
Apparently the public doesn’t see Obama smears as an issue.
http://thehill.com/house-polls/thehill-poll-week-2/124177-the-hill-poll-swing-district-voters-more-likely-to-see-dems-as-dominated-by-extremists-
Also, you have to understand that the country had just lived through eight years of smears, kind of get desensitized to it after awhile. I do recognize that democrats feel the need to protect the manchild and jump up and down at any hint of a cross word. Time to grow up
Great article and some fine comments, but I have to jump in with this Soros comment:
“Wealth does accumulate in the hands of its owners, and if there is no mechanism for redistribution, the inequities can become intolerable. “Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.” Francis Bacon was a profound economist.”
I like how ol’ George proved his point by purchasing an island and importing people from around the world to populate this island and then redistributing his wealth among them all while they lived in their non-technological, non-industrial society. They were all so happy to live in huts and wear grass skirts that he clearly showed us capitalists and conservatives what for. He really – wait, what’s that? OOPS – never happened. Never will. And George will never truly spread his wealth to the real and so-called needy of this world. He has proven that, too. In fact, when he croaks, one can bet that his fortune will be dedicated in perpetuity to the same crap he believes now.
It always amazes me at how some folks just love to trash wealth or the accumulation of same, yet when they do get their shot, their conviction coveniently goes by the boards. obama or soros – the same.
@Tom:
Oh, you’re yammering about religious conspiracies, etc, etc…. I was under the impression from your own words that the discussion topic was tax policy:
Of course, if building straw men regarding Obie’s religion is easier for you than the taxation topic, I’m more than happy to torch them as they arise.
I know it’s convenient for you to claim that progressive taxation is not a Constitutional issue but you’ve yet to actually square that circle.
Just saying it isn’t so doesn’t work.
Care to try again?
Don’t let your keyboard get so far ahead of you that you attempt to put words in my mouth.
Never once did I say that the wealthy “owe nothing back.” Never once did I indicate that the wealthy should pay nothing in taxes.
On the other hand, you seem to be quite comfortable with the lower income brackets paying nothing. Zip…Zero…Zilch…Nada to the country that gives them and everyone else an equal opportunity for success.
Finally, you specifically mention “infrastructure”, “Law and order”, “Police & fire” and the outlays that the gov’t makes in those areas on behalf of the People.
Would you agree or disagree that citizens in the lower income brackets by virtue of their sheer numbers if nothing else make use of those gov’t outlays more so than the upper groups?
I would argue that the lower groups partake of a greater share when you consider their use of public transit, public housing, public education, public health care, food stamps, welfare, police protections (via higher crime rates), higher law expenses (via public defenders, etc).
So yes, they should be paying their portion to support the nation.
If you’re still confused on my point, perhaps you should go back and read what I wrote. It was as clearly stated and plainly written as it could possibly be.
Oh, you mean the same Reagan who dramatically cut tax rates shortly after taking office?
Exit Question: Would you be in favor of all former presidents of the US paying 100% of their income in the form of taxes for the rest of their lives? We have, after all, “made them what they are” and provided them an avenue by which to become tremendously wealthy if that is what they choose to do.
You’re too direct to be this coy. But if you don’t want to address it, that’s your right.
The Supreme Court rejected that argument if I’m not mistaken.
I said that? Where?
Food stamps? Welfare? You have interesting ideas of how working people in those forlorn lower tax brackets live. But yes, there are people who require government services. I see them every day outside of where i work. Many of them are severely disturbed individuals who will never be able to work for a living, as much as you’d like to whip them into shape. These are the people that I never hear about when the issue of Government ‘handouts’ comes up.
@ #51:
What’s to square? Every American taxpayer is subject to the same progressive schedule of rates. Bill Gates pays 10% on his first taxable $8,375. He’s taxed at 15% on the next $8,376 through $34,000, and so on. The progressive aspect applies equally to everyone.
Progressive taxation is a mechanism that to some extent balances the observable tendency of money and the power it brings to concentrate at the top–a situation that, for the majority of Americans, can reduce equal justice and equal protection to little more than hollow concepts.
Flat tax schemes only sound equitable on the surface. In reality they would shift the tax burden in a way that heavily favors the wealthy, at the expense of everyone else. There’s a good discussion to be found here:
http://www.wordwiz72.com/flattax.html
@Tom:
Is the topic taxation or is it not?
I’m not interested in unfounded conspiracy theories regarding Obie’s religion or lack thereof but, since you seem rather determined, I’ll address it briefly.
I’ve stated on other occasions, the issue is irrelevant because it is outside the Constitutional requirements of the office.
However, his honesty and forthrightness on the matter of his faith does concern me because, quite simply, if he is unable to be honest about such a personal matter then what else is he deceiving us about? The ever changing, morphing, evolving stories regarding his faith make it clearly evident that he wasn’t honest from the beginning.
Case law citation?
Here’s what I wrote again (with emphasis on the important portion of the phrase):
Not once have you expressed any sort of dissatisfaction with the provable fact that the lower 50% of earners pay nothing. Your silence speaks volumes.
Of course, if you agree with me that the lower 50% should be comparably taxed on their earnings then perhaps we’re not as far apart on this issue as we seem to be.
Well, are there working people in those “forlorn lower brackets” who collect food stamps and welfare…or are there not?
You attempt to find fault with my premise then go on to agree that there are those “who require government services.”
Argue with yourself much?
Tom are you concerned that in our current tax structure we are approaching 50% of the population that does not support their government? Do you think that block of voters constitute a danger to this country?
Who knew Adam Smith was a socialist, and a supporter of the progressive tax system?
You failed to understand Adam Smith’s context of that paragraph. The paragraph is a clause that justifies a form of charitable actions from the subjects, which as you fail to show the rest of the work of the Article, subject is a business or merchant. Adam Smith’s core ideal is that a for a healthy captialist system to work the businesses should operate to promote the well being of their local enviroments on their own accords, which until you put forth the rest of the article that makes this paragraph’s context accurate, you have failed in your argument. Adam Smith’s points takes up four to five paragraphs to get across, not one. Hence why his works are so dense and annoying to do reports on for most economics students.
Good question.
Asked and answered by others a long time ago…..
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend of the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw
No republic has long outlived the discovery by a majority of its people that they could vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. – Alexander Tytler
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. – Winston Churchill
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. – Margaret Thatcher
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. – Barry Goldwater
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot further the brotherhood of many by encouraging class hatred.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away mans initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. – Attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but actually penned by William J. H. Boetcker
Give me control over a man’s economic actions, and hence over his means of survival, and except for a few occasional heroes, I’ll promise to deliver to you men who think and write and behave as I want them to. – Benjamine A. Rooge
@ Mr. Irons, #62:
Smith begins the section wherein the quoted paragraph appears with this statement: “Before I enter upon the examination of particular taxes, it is necessary to premise the four following maxims with regard to taxes in general.” The quoted paragraph, which immediately follows, is the first of his four maxims dealing with taxes in general.
I’m no student of Adam Smith, but his meaning seems clear and the context unambiguous. He’s flat-out telling the reader that this is one of four maxims applying to taxes in general.
http://www.bartleby.com/10/502.html
Aye, remind me to never get in an argument with you ……………….
or Skookum…………………………
or Mata……………………………………………….
………………………………….never mind.
OLD TROOPER 2: hi, I like the hearth video music, thank you. bye
Greg, you still fail to understand the context and for that matter the English Syntax Adam Smith wrote his Inquiry Into a Wealth of Nations. A “State” in Adam’s word usage is not Government, it is the capital enviroment that merchants must contend with localy and across the Empire due to the still practiced Feudalism under the British Empire. If he is to address Empire, it would be labled as such. As for “Taxes”, it is of a different matter than what you are using or assuming it is, modern day English Syntax is NOT to be used with Adam Smith’s works and ideals and can only be understood by using the English syntax structure that was used during his time frame. Attempting to use modern understanding of various words today fail to deliver any attempt you’re making Greg, as such syntax is inaccurate and incomplete in understanding British Imperial English syntax from the 1700’s. Until you read the entire article, or for that matter put it full outworth to Flopping Aces readers, you are snip picking various sentences from a Man well known to use entire thesis papers to argue what’s for dinner. Adam Smith was bright but very awkward, and very absentminded, trying to use a single sentence from him is trying to use a single word from any person today to define that said person’s argument. It just doesn’t work.
Communist Manifesto and other Socialist ideals were written and published and came to spoiled fruit in the late 1800’s… generaly 1848 By one Karl Marx with a few of his cohorts such as Engels.
Where as Adam Smith’s work of An Inquiry Into A Wealth of Nations were published in 1776, almost a full century before Marx and his buddies wrote their assaults on Smith’s works of Capitalism. It does NOT help your case that Smith’s works predates Socialism’s ideals and writings and as such Marx’s works were a direct assault on Smith’s publications in one form or another. As such it’s very difficult to connect the lines that Adam Smith was a Socialist when the very ideals and concept did not take root till 70 some years after his death and does not help your arguement.
Now… why is 1776 so important of a year… Hmmms… (/sarcasism)
@Tom:
Hold on a second there Hoss. You’re letting your keyboard get way ahead of you again.
The topic of this conversation is taxation and tax policy.
First you attempted to veer it off course with a religious conspiracy straw man which I torched for you.
Now you’re attempting to veer it again by building a “blatant racism” straw man.
Since I don’t particularly care for short stories, I won’t attempt to read you mind on this but, man oh man, it sounds like you’re getting dangerously close to accusing me of racism.
I really hope that is not the case because that particular bunny trail won’t end well for you.
Now Tom, show me precisely where race became a topic in this discussion and, more specifically, where I decided “blatant racism” is irrelevant.
Answer carefully.
Let me explain to you how this whole discussion board thing works:
You set forth a premise, the purpose of which was to show that equal justice and equal protection have already been addressed regarding the matter of progressive taxation:
You provided no sourcing or citation of case law to support your claim so I asked for it.
You responded instead with a piece of snappy rejoinder about Google, implying that I should be doing your research for you.
That’s not how it works.
Your point. Your onus.
Dayum Dood!
I made that point way back in #56 and you said that I “have interesting ideas of how working people in those forlorn lower tax brackets live.”
Are you even paying attention to what I’m writing or are you too busy arguing with yourself?
Considering your blatant attempts at straw man obfuscation, your non-sensical answers, and the series of pointed questions that you’ve left unanswered as we’ve proceeded, it’s becoming more and more obvious that you’ve come to this discussion either woefully unprepared or, perhaps, excessively inebriated.
@ Mr. Irons, #68:
Who knew Adam Smith was a socialist was actually intended as irony, not argument. The point was this: The concept of progressive taxation is no more socialist than Adam Smith himself, who stated the underlying principle of progressive taxation in his first maxim regarding taxation in general.
I understand that the late 18th Century mode of argument and discourse is a very different thing from that of the early 21st Century. Even so, Smith seems to me to be conveying his thoughts directly and with great clarity throughout this entire section. I tend to take his statements there to mean exactly what they say. If I’m picking and choosing Smith’s thoughts to make my point, I’m doing him no more of a disservice than modern-day laissez-faire capitalists, who routinely do the same.
There’s a current tendency to paint progressive taxation as a basic element of socialism, or as a stepping stone to an oppressive, overreaching socialist economic system. On the contrary, in the modern world it’s arguably an essential part of any sustainable capitalist system. It’s a mechanism that keeps such a system from destroying itself, by moderating the extreme concentrations of wealth and power that have historically led to social instability and systemic collapse. Over the past few decades, such a dangerous, accelerating, upward redistributation of wealth has been an observable and measurable process, with predictable societal consequences. One of my central criticisms of current republican policy is that it will throw kerosene on the fire. Most republicans don’t even seem to recognize the fact that such a dangerous fire is present. They seem to think that any measures to control the fire are the primary danger.
I don’t believe you are a racist. There are people I believe are. You ask for proof? Prove to me water is wet. Some things are self-evident.
Actually, the onus is not on me to redundantly state as true something that is understood, that has existed for years under Republican and Democratic administrations, and that has not seriously been challenged as unconstitutional. I would say the onus is on you to provide overwhelming evidence to the contrary. If you can’t, much ado about nothing. If so, please bore us with the details.
BTW, the cases
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=240&page=115
I pity you if can’t appreciate the fine potions being distilled by God-fearing men in the state of Kentucky.
And once again you try to use modern day Syntax to Adam Smith’s work. Trying to backtrack on your points as, “Irony” also does not work. Taxes under that former use of wordage differs rather vastly than what you are implying it as to what Adam Smith and for the matter most merchants of the time used it as. Taxes were more relevant to man power, not money (as that is duties and Tithes), to the State Of Labor in the British Empire for the 17000’s. As I said before State in Smith’s works are not Government at all, it is a state of business or labor environment his articles address. You can tell me whatever you want and try to backtrack yourself now but you still do not use the current Syntax meaning of Smith’s works and justify it. Only by understanding and using1700’s word syntax will Smith’s works be correctly used in a proper argument or point addressing.
@Tom:
Good. I’m glad we’re able to lay that aside.
Yes. And?
That issue was never up for debate so, beyond obfuscation of the issue we’re discussing, what was your point in bringing it up?
I notice that you attempted, rather clumsily I might add, to breeze by the main thrust of the first point that I raised in my last post to you.
Here it is again for your reference:
That question was in direct response to an false accusation that you made against me.
Is there a particular reason why you seem to be unable defend your premise?
Yes, the onus is on you because you’re the one who claimed that SCOTUS has ruled progressive taxation to be Constitutional.
Your claim. Your onus.
Care to try again?
Oh, and that case law you cited…those examples were challenges to the income tax itself (ie issues of direct taxation, apportionment, etc), not the progressive nature of the income tax.