Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I like to see a Lib complain about taxes. Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling

But I thought you benefit more from all the services the G provides - you should be happy to pay more taxes, no?

No one is happy to pay taxes. The difference is that libertarians think that this sort of selfishness is the basis for a political philosophy. I'm willing to pay my fair share, and I don't think it's fair that the AMT whacks those of us in states like California more.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
No one is happy to pay taxes. The difference is that libertarians think that this sort of selfishness is the basis for a political philosophy. I'm willing to pay my fair share, and I don't think it's fair that the AMT whacks those of us in states like California more.

Ah, selfishness, yes. It couldn't possibly based on cocepts of liberty (hence "libertarian" must be a misnomer). It's got to be selfishness.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
But you aren't upset that it doesn't allow a deduction for property taxes or sales taxes or whatever other taxes? I mean, shit, I have to pay fed AND state income tax on the Medicare/OASDI taxes I pay!!!! And I have to pay state income tax on my federal taxes!!! OH. MY. GOD.

It's not like people who live in the middle get to deduct whatever it is that is coming from them to fund their governments, but you on the coasts don't get to deduct your income tax, so you are at a disadvantage.

It amazes me how taxes make normally smart, rational people dumb. Money is powerful stuff.

I am upset that it doesn't allow a deduction for property taxes, too. I get whacked there as well. I live in a state with higher taxes. I pay those taxes. Why should I pay federal income tax on the income that the state takes as taxes? Under the regular methods of calculating your federal income tax, I don't. It's only under the AMT that I do.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
No one is happy to pay taxes. The difference is that libertarians think that this sort of selfishness is the basis for a political philosophy. I'm willing to pay my fair share, and I don't think it's fair that the AMT whacks those of us in states like California more.

How the HELL does it whack you more? What deduction people in other states getting to keep?

ETA shit to respond to your later post. Those other states are getting funded somehow -- maybe they just weren't getting to deduct whatever money they paid to fund their states because it's harder to pinpoint, or no one lobbied for it. You are not thinking logically. Why does CA need more money to run itself? Because the gov't here provides more services in some way? Why should the rest of the country subsidize CA's services by letting you not have to pay fed income tax on what your state has chosen to spend?

It would be more logical for you to complain that CA doesn't let you deduct federal taxes from your state income tax bill.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Ah, selfishness, yes. It couldn't possibly based on cocepts of liberty (hence "libertarian" must be a misnomer). It's got to be selfishness.

You asked a five-cent question, so you got a five-cent answer. I am happy to debate the underpinnings of libertarianism any day, since I think it's based on an incomplete and flawed concept of liberty.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
How the HELL does it whack you more? What deduction people in other states getting to keep?

I mean, I get whacked more by the difference between the AMT and the regular method of calculation.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I mean, I get whacked more by the difference between the AMT and the regular method of calculation.

Because the regular method gave you a big fat break by letting you deduct the huge amounts California's citizens, through their elected representatives, have chosen to spend on stuff in California. So suck it up.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
You asked a five-cent question, so you got a five-cent answer. I am happy to debate the underpinnings of libertarianism any day, since I think it's based on an incomplete and flawed concept of liberty.

My question was asked in jest. I really didn't want to know the answer. Just having fun for the moment in bizarro world.

I think pure libertarianism is flawed as well.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Because the regular method gave you a big fat break by letting you deduct the huge amounts California's citizens, through their elected representatives, have chosen to spend on stuff in California. So suck it up.

First of all, I understand that you do not believe what you are saying, and are simply arguing about this because I'm willing to argue with you about tax stuff. NTTAWWT.

Second, you are pretending that money taxed by state and local governments is money that I "have chosen to spend on stuff." But -- obviously -- it isn't. Most fundamentally, this is because I don't have a "choice." The state makes it for me. Also, I don't necessarily get "stuff" for this money. It may go, e.g., to pay off bonds issued by the state before I ever moved here, or to subsidize things for other citizens, or for a variety of other purposes I will never enjoy. This doesn't make the tax illegitimate, but it does mean that the money is fundamentally unlike income to me, in that it doesn't come into my account.

So bite me.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
My question was asked in jest. I really didn't want to know the answer. Just having fun for the moment in bizarro world.

I think pure libertarianism is flawed as well.

Lbertarians see you as free when your use of your real estate is dictated by rules established by unelected government officials who wear black robes and sit in courthouses, but not when it is dictated by rules established by elected government officials who sit in the legislature. So, whatever.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Lbertarians see you as free when your use of your real estate is dictated by rules established by unelected government officials who wear black robes and sit in courthouses, but not when it is dictated by rules established by elected government officials who sit in the legislature. So, whatever.

I don't understand this.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
You could stop the air force from flying, and that would help some. But you cannot stop people on the ground from killing each other, and killing civilians, and that has been going on for years and years. And not just in Darfur -- all over the country. The Arab north has always dominated the national government, but it does not control most of the south. There are many, many factions, and who is fighting with whom keeps changing.

I'm not defending inaction. But there's not a lot we can do, either.

I recommend this book highly:



It's about Sudan, framed around the story of a British relief worker who married one of the southern rebel leaders.

As I understand it, the Darfur situation is much different from the North South civil war. In the north south civil war, you have southern black christians who want to split from the the muslim north. But Darfur, is classic ethnic cleansing. The Arabs have decided they don't like the black muslims in Darfur and have decided to cleanse them out. It is similar to Kosovo. It is hard to systematically exterminate an entire race of people (ask the Nazis). We simply stop the Janjajubuweedplants from carrying out their genocide. Eventually they are going to run out of steam and give up. But now they think they are going to get away with it so they are continuing.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I don't understand this.

That's what I've always thought.

When libertarians talk about property rights and less government, what they mean is, they like a common law regime of property rights -- i.e., property rights determined by judges, in accord with what a bunch of dead English people decided.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
First of all, I understand that you do not believe what you are saying, and are simply arguing about this because I'm willing to argue with you about tax stuff. NTTAWWT.

Second, you are pretending that money taxed by state and local governments is money that I "have chosen to spend on stuff." But -- obviously -- it isn't. Most fundamentally, this is because I don't have a "choice." The state makes it for me. Also, I don't necessarily get "stuff" for this money. It may go, e.g., to pay off bonds issued by the state before I ever moved here, or to subsidize things for other citizens, or for a variety of other purposes I will never enjoy. This doesn't make the tax illegitimate, but it does mean that the money is fundamentally unlike income to me, in that it doesn't come into my account.

So bite me.

Oh, go suck your own left one. I am actually pretty serious. You can tell by the way I'm not fully admitting to being serious. All the states have to pay for gov't and stuff. Yours collects a lot of money through state income taxes which, because of a lot of lobbying, are normally deductible from federal taxes. States without a state income tax do it some other way -- but they've gotta be getting the money somehow, and it's hard to see how it couldn't be coming from the people in the state. And, those people aren't getting to deduct on their federal taxes whatever it is that their state is using to raise funds, unless it's property taxes, which I think (but fuck if I know, the AMT hasn't hit me yet) are added back in for AMT purposes just like state income taxes are.

Whatever. I think you are absorbed in your own world of self-pity (disguised as righteous anger) and aren't particularly susceptible to logic.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
I think you are absorbed in your own world of self-pity (disguised as righteous anger) and aren't particularly susceptible to logic.

Pot. Kettle.

Income taken by the state as taxes -- income, property, whatever, that's not a distinction I'm trying to draw -- is not available to the taxpayer to spend, and the taxpayer does not necessarily get the benefits.

If the benefits of state and local government spending are what matters, then people in Wyoming and Alaska ought to have to pay federal income tax on imputed income from the government spending funded by the states' mineral royalties. But that's silly.