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| CURRENT EVENTS Trump elected as the 47th President: The transition ...
- Thread starter Brandon Van de Graaff
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This is why we have Nate Oats.
musso
Member
I’ve already answered this question. Yes, I do believe they should be tax exempt, in addition to everyone else. Short of this though, political equality and responsible governance require a skepticism towards exemptions and any preferential treatment.
I’ll add to what I’ve already said about how governments rely on granting privileges as part of a broader divide-and-conquer strategy. By treating subjects unequally in as many different and complicated ways as possible, rulers can reduce opposition to their authority. We are less likely to overthrow a system that we perceive treats us favorably in some way, even if we’re generally dissatisfied with the regime.
And in Public Choice Theory, it’s called “dispersed costs-concentrated benefits.” It would be nearly impossible to inspire your friends and neighbors to join you in protest against, say, corn or sugar subsidies. Folks would not be willing to get off their couch and protest something that costs them probably pennies and nickels a year, even though it makes a few firms unfairly wealthy, gives their lobbyists influence over policy, and makes our food supply more unhealthy. Plus, when you have so many citizens on the receiving end of some sort of preferential treatment, it reduces the bandwidth of citizens’ attention to matters outside of the preservation of that privilege.
Commentators on statecraft throughout history have long noted how gifts from rulers have always undermined the formation of consensus and coalitions among the governed. It is anti-democratic at its core. It is critical that we return to equal treatment under the law and equal rates of taxation so that the widest possible tax base can exist. This will encourage solidarity among all tax payers. It will also demand less spending from our governments. We all remember “No taxation without representation!” Well, we should also support “No representation without taxation.” That includes foreign lobbies too, btw!
TerryP
Staff
Didn't remember. Mea culpa.
Just saw an interview with Mark Cuban on FNC... Elon says he's morning into Rachel Maddow... physically, yes. Mentally however, he's turning into Keith Olbermann 2.0.
TerryP
Staff
This is a HARD NO!
This is an interesting word you chose.
Duplicity, in action. When have you paid attention to commentators?
(me, being a dick.)
musso
Member
So you want rulers who don’t have to pay taxes equally like the rest of us? Great. So you must like the current system then, haha.
By commentators I meant political theorists and critics of politicians throughout history. History’s best and brightest, not the modern connotation of corporate talking heads, if that’s what you mean.Duplicity, in action. When have you paid attention to commentators?
Good advice. People these days let politics be the heaviest thing they carry around in their lives. I'm not real sure why that is... I believe social media has made it worse. And the evaporation of the "moderate" class has made it worse. But it has to be more than all that, and I don't know why. It consumes way too many people. Everything now is politicized to the extremes and you have to choose one side or the other or you don't fit in anymore. Obviously, politics is important and it impacts us all to some degree, but the extreme behavior we see today like cutting people out of their lives over it, getting so stressed that you end up sick over it, etc... that ain't good.
