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Pastimes : My House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (3191)	10/30/2002 2:23:08 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7689

If you don't have a deemed agreement with your Government which confers upon you legal rights and freedoms, and demands from you legal obligations...then what keeps your relationship with your Government from being entirely arbitrary? Before you where saying that I was "Agreeing to accept the justice of such a system is paramount to willingly supporting whatever obligations are imposed by such a system..." Anyone who has made such an agreement is subject to entirely arbitrary impositions by the government, after all they have agreed to meet "whatever obligations" that might be required of them. What keeps my relationship with the government from being arbitrary? Well to a large extent it is. The government is limited by the constitution and by its own laws and by the posibility of a negative popular reaction to its ideas but the constitution and the laws are often bent out of shape without the courts or the people seriously objecting. As long as the government's new steps are at least somewhat popular it often can get away with doing just about whatever it wants to do. And what is it that all of you rely on to justify enforcement of fairness and decency within the social structure? No agreement I can accept or reject will ensure that the government acts in a fair or decent manner. I can only hope that the political process will result in a fair and decent government that respects my rights but there is no guarantee. The question becomes: should we solicit the shoes from the person who has only one pair? Or should we ask the person who had 10 pairs to give one? I am not talking about FORCE. I am talking about people with equal voices in a free society USING THEIR BRAINS WHEN THEY MAKE THEIR DEMOCRATIC CHOICES You are talking about force. People use their equal voices in a free society and then those who disagree with the minority decision get the majority opinion force on them. Having the force imposed with the support of the majority is better then having the force imposed by some king or dictator but it is still force. Some decision has to be made and its better to have the majority support it but I think there should be a recognition that government is force and a strong desire to minimize the use of that force. Also people react to the negative incentives that redistribution creates. If you take from those who work and/or invest and give to those who don't you lower the incentive to create wealth. Of course some people can't work but you can have some form of safety net for those people without having an extensive welfare state. Your insistence on a same percentage for taxation, simply misses the point that equal is not FAIR. Equal would be everyone giving the same amount of money, not the same percentage. But I agree that would be unfair which is why I argue for the same percentage. This way the rich pay more. Do you remember the fable of Jesus and the lady who gave all she had? What she gave was practically nothing...but relatively speaking it was far far more than all the rich men had given. But just because she gave 100% of her income did not mean she was being treated unfairly? It was a choice... Yes, she faced no coercion. It wasn't a tax, it was a donation. I just want you to know that I am not necessarily being dismissive of your more encompassing principles or concepts when I wrestle with you on narrow details or aspects. I entered this discussion on a peripheral point, as you remember. A teeter totter never works with all the weight on one end. So I admit to trying to temper most discussions I enter into with the other side of the story. I'll try to keep that in mind. Tim