From: juan <juan.g71@gmail.com> On Mon, 21 Nov 2016 18:11:11 +0000 (UTC) jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:
Steve Kinney <admin@pilobilus.net> In the United States, 500 billionaires presently own about 1/2 of the capital assets;
Did they obtain them legally or illegally?
Do you have to ask? Yes, I DO have to ask. Chalk it up to my not being PC. Sorry if that microagression offends the snowflakes.
Basic political economy What is "political economy"? Are you simply talking about economics? Remember, I'm a LIBERTARIAN. I believe "taxation is theft". This means that I don't automatically accept the idea that government is somehow entitled to rob people of their assets and income. and natural rights theory should inform you...But the answer is, for the record, ILLEGALLY. What is "natural rights theory". At least, how do "natural rights" somehow allow a system (American, for example) of taxation that didn't exist for 99% of world history? Doesn't sound too 'natural' to me.
If illegally, enforce the law. If legally, change the laws if necessary.
I'm not really following. Why should libertarian anarchists bother with state legislation? Despite being a libertarian anarchist, I can engage in discussions which do not assume that libertarian anarchy exists or is proper. For example, I can consider the existing political system, and discuss various improvements to it, ones short of actually implementing libertarian anarchy. Properly used, brains can do things like that.
That doesn't mean that 'restitution' by means of taxes makes > much sense either. Obviously the state, whose purpose is to TAX > THE POOR and give the money to the RICH is not going to do the > opposite. If the job of the government is to "tax the poor", it isn't doing an especially effective job. As I previously cited, " "The Top 50 Percent of All Taxpayers Paid 97 Percent of All Income Taxes; the Top 5 Percent Paid 57 Percent of All Income Taxes; and the Top 1 Percent Paid 35 Percent of All Income Taxes in 2011" Assuming you agree that "the poor" inhabit the region "the bottom 50 percent of all taxpayers", then those "poor" are only paying 3% (100%-97% = 3%) of the total Federal taxes collected. That's not very effective "tax the poor" results, is it? If "the poor" are those in the bottom 10% of taxpayers, then the statistic (which I don't have) would probably be even more extreme. Looks to me if they are trying to CONCEAL their taxing the poor, they are doing an excellent job. But then again, if you are content with simply inventing reality, such statistics aren't much of an impediment. Jim Bell