Evolution of Compromise by dreamtrove

1. Abolish the Federal Reserve.

2. Remove personhood from Corporations.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:27 AM

FIVVER

I'm not going to try to predict the outcome of a revolution but here's how I'd like to spark it:

Get companies out of the role of tax collector for the government by abolishing employer whithholding. You would get your full paycheck and then every month, just like you do for your mortgage, utilities, etc., you would have to write checks to the IRS for your income, social security and medicare taxes. Also checks for whatever state and local taxes you owe. I guarantee that within two months it will hit the fan.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:45 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by fivver:
You would get your full paycheck and then every month, just like you do for your mortgage, utilities, etc., you would have to write checks to the IRS for your income, social security and medicare taxes. Also checks for whatever state and local taxes you owe.

YES!!!!

If this is the only tax reform we ever make, I can live with that. No change to the amount of taxes owed at all.

------
It goes without saying all my views above are my humble opinions, based on my personal experiences, from my limited perspective, and should not be construed as facts.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 5:26 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

You can't ask poor people and people with bad credit to write checks. They may not have checking accounts, and if they have to purchase money orders, they'd be effectively fined for paying taxes. This would create a burden on the lower class disproportionate to the burden on the middle class or the wealthy.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 7:24 AM

CTS

Okay, to get rid of the FED, which I think we can all agree on, we would need to create an alternative which operated outside that system.

Corporate personhood, I'm not an anti-14th person. Logically it seems to me that the 14th puts protections in place. Logically, it's not the 14th which makes corporations immune to the law, citizens have to obey the law.

Just to rewind for a second, remember where the decision came from: Santa Clara County vs. The Southern Pacific Railroad. The count claim was that the railroad had to pay tax to the county, as it was a resident of the county, and it was followed by similar claims of every govt. the railroad passed through as well as the State of California, etc. All of which would make a railroad impossible.

But the real goal here is that the govt. not have the authority to usurp the management, or the budgets, of corporations, an idea I definitely agree with.

So, when people say "repeal the 14th" by which we all understand them to mean the 14th amendment rulings, not the text of the amendment itself, I have to say: no, I think that's a bad idea, it would lead to more govt. takeover of industry, but I have ask what is it that you're really getting at? What is it in corporate behavior that makes you think that we should reverse the 14th am. decisions?

Surely I assume surely you're not saying that the court *should* have ruled in favor of Santa Clara? I think we would all agree, or I hope, that the analysis that as a person, the Southern Pacific Railroad had the right to travel *through* Santa Clara County, and that this right was granted to the railroad by the supreme court on the unanimous grounds that as a citizen of the united states, the railroad had a right of freedom of movement.

That said, would we really want to take away the collective rights of the people when organized into a non-governmental body? I would think this would lead to a further tyranny of the state.

But there must be something underlying this argument, a disagreement with corporate behavior.

What behavior is it specifically that you want to curb? I assume you're not saying that corporations should not be granted protection under the constitution as regards free speech, cruel and unusual punishment, search and seizure, etc.

Fivver

Good idea. I don't think we have the power to make this law, but I think we could start this practice. I would extend this to all corporate garnishes, such as 401k, etc.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 7:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Hello,

You can't ask poor people and people with bad credit to write checks. They may not have checking accounts, and if they have to purchase money orders, they'd be effectively fined for paying taxes. This would create a burden on the lower class disproportionate to the burden on the middle class or the wealthy.

--Anthony

Anthony,

As a member of the poor, I'm not buying this argument. Almost everyone has a checking account, and the fee is nominal. I have one friend who doesn't have an account because he doesn't have a permanent residence, but still, the fee is nominal.

In order for your scenario to make sense, first, the homeless would actually have to owe taxes. It's highly unlikely, since it starts out with about 11,000 in deductables. There's no way that those who did not earn 11,000 do not have a checking account, and wouldn't be able to set one up for free.

Additionally, how is the buck or two that it would cost a) oppressive, and b) characteristically different from the 25 cents the check would cost. I think this is completely out of scale with what we are talking about here, which is about a trillion in garnishes.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 7:42 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Also, probably up for grabs would be your notion of what a revolution would consist of. At the very least, people here want change. I haven't seen anyone who is 100% happy with the state of affairs.

I'd be very leery of a revolution, given the results of most in the last 100 years or so. During this period, only in the states of the dissolving Soviet Union has any revolution occurred which significantly enhanced individual rights and liberties, and those were pretty much just movement of democratic ideas into a political power vacuum. Even these states, which had minimal difficulty with transition of power, are often having problems changing from a command to a free-market economy.

I'd really prefer to continue evolution.

Consider the stuff in the U.S. that was widely accepted or approved of within the last 100 years, but is now not only illegal, but repugnant to the vast majority of citizens.

- Wide-spread child labor.

- Wide-spread and open public and private discrimination against people of any number of ethnic backgrounds - Jewish, Italian, Irish, Eastern European, Asian, Black, Hispanic, etc.

- The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, under which a lot of the political talk that occurs here in RWED could have put the poster in jail.

- withholding the voting franchise from women.

- Prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.

- The detention of hundred of thousands of Japanese-Americans during WWII for no crime except being of Japanese ancestry.

- De facto and de jure racial segregation on a national level in both public and private spheres - including schools, colleges, the military, government employment, and access to transportation, lodging, and retail businesses and restaurants.

- Jim Crow laws, Poll taxes, Literacy tests and other means of denying large portions of the population the right to vote based solely on race.

- Laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage.

- Military conscription.

- Widespread censorship of any images or descriptions of nudity, sexual relations, and other actions considered 'immoral'.

- Harsh laws and strong public opinion against the use or sale of birth control drugs or devices, and against abortion.

- Harsh laws and strong public opinion against sex outside of marriage, or sexual practices - even between heterosexual couples - that were considered 'deviant'.

- Harsh laws and strong public opinion against homosexuals and their sexual practices.

And, no, I'm not saying that that things are as good as they can get just because we got rid of these things. I'm just saying that things are better than they were, and generally continue to get better. Slowly and with fits and starts and slight reversals, surely, but always in the direction of more individual liberty.

I'd prefer to take this evolutionary route rather than throwing the whole system out and trying to start again from first principles, especially when history shows that in recent years (the last century, say) the results of a revolution, no matter how pure the goals of the rebels, often don't meet expectations and often end up with things being worse.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, December 6, 2010 7:46 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
In order for your scenario to make sense, first, the homeless would actually have to owe taxes. It's highly unlikely, since it starts out with about 11,000 in deductibles. There's no way that those who did not earn 11,000 do not have a checking account, and wouldn't be able to set one up for free.

Social Security and Medicare taxes are collected on all earnings, with no deductibles, so they'd still have to pay on any earnings.

Edit to add:

Also, consider how much Social Security and Medicare taxes won't be paid under this method. Unless the employers continue to report earnings to the IRS, folks will just not pay. Even if earnings are reported, it'll probably make collecting SSA and Medicare payments much more difficult and expensive. These benefits are based on everyone paying their share. If that falls through, problems will ensue.

And edit again:

Do you have any idea just how much more expensive it would be for the government to have to receive, open, sort, input, and account for hundreds of millions of individual checks instead of the digital information and deposits they now get from employers? If you really want big government, you're on the right track.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, December 6, 2010 7:50 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

As a prior member of the working poor, I can assure you that you can A) Be taxed, and B) Not have a checking account.

Garnishment is free (for me. The employer absorbs admin costs associated with this, and I promise he will not pass his savings on to me!) Not all working poor people can get checking accounts (I used to not have one) and some working poor people have to pay taxes (I did.)

So making me buy money orders and then mail them off to the government gives the working poor (Me Yesterday) a disparate negative impact compared to people like the working middle class (Me today) who have checking accounts with free checking and free Bill Pay.

Me Yesterday (The working poor) is also offended that you would call any fee 'nominal' and dismiss it, especially when it is a fee that more well-to-do people don't have to pay.

I VETO this process until it can be made absolutely free (or equally expensive) for every citizen.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 8:20 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...

I think Fivver was suggesting

"I'm not going to try to predict the outcome of a revolution but here's how I'd like to spark it...

...I guarantee that within two months it will hit the fan."

That if folk knew what they were paying to the gov by actually having to write the checks themselves instead of the money magically disappearing before they get paid, that they would start a revolution.

Something other than the Fed... and who's going to watch them?

I'm with Geezer - Evolution, not Revolution.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Monday, December 6, 2010 8:31 AM

FIVVER

I'm afraid folks are missing my point about eliminating employer withholding. I'm not worried about convenience or efficiency, I want people to wake up and get involved. Right now people are too complacent (and don't think the pols don't know it) about what they are paying. All most people know about their income is what their take home pay is and then on April 15th they get a few bucks back. What this would do is change that so that the costs of government are constantly up close and in their face. I want people thinking as they pay their taxes 'You know I could be putting my kid through college/buying that new car I need/getting that new roof for the house/saving for my retirement with this. Let's see what they are spending it on...'

I can see several possible outcomes:

People wake up and really start holding their representatives accountable for spending. No more billions per year wasted on unnecessary stuff like the CPB, NEA and subsidizing the Napa Valley wine train.

Congress scraps the whole income tax system and goes to something like the Fair Tax.

Congress continues in their ways and in a few months we get treated to a fall of Saigon type picture where instead of the American Embassy it's the Capitol Building and it's Nancy Pelosi hanging from the helicopter's skid.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 8:42 AM

HERO

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Say we have a revolution, and we have relatively little in common on political viewpoints, other than a common enemy. I think that many of us would agree on the problems, but not all, and few of us would agree on solutions.

During the original American Revolution there were generally only three sides. Either you were a Tory/Loyalist, a Patriot/Rebel, or you just wanted to sit the whole thing out...neutral. Sure you had a couple Frenchies and some Indians here and there, but generally you were on one side or the other or neither.

In your case your revolution would split the country assunder because there are simply too many sides. You'd have the Seperatists (Black, Latino, White). You'd have the Greenies. Anarchists. Fundamentalists. Socialists. Patriots. Texians. Soveriegn Individualists. Donald Trump. Criminals. Gangs. There are more and more groups then you can count and everyone with their own vision of what it could all look like if they could simply rewrite the whole thing.

For me, I love America. I prefer it to either Liberal Fantasyland, Conservative Mayberry, or Moderate Fencepolluptheassatopia.

Liberals are supposed to challenge and push, conservatives move cautious and slow, and moderates find the balance between the two. Generally the system works...although I wonder if the common enemy you mentioned might just be the moderates.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 9:03 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Geeze, that's where it keeps coming back to, for me.

The equation of progress vs casualties and reversal potential - anything that caused a widespead collapse of our fragile, crumbling and neglected infrastructure, which thanks to those factors, is far less robust than people think, would result in massive casualties - anyone who knows any history at all would have no trouble figuring THAT one out, since modern cities are wholly dependant on that infrastructure for clean water, sanitation, and food supply.

Lose those things, and within 30 days the city will be all but utterly destroyed, and so would much of the surrounding area.

It's ugly realities like these that most would-be revolutionaries never wanna talk about, never wanna think about, all the things they take for granted will just keep keepin on without someone actively working to make that happen.

And let's not even go there about pushing over an established order without anything to replace it with - I figure folk woulda learned something from our little Iraq adventure about that.

The only suggestion I'll offer at the time is simply allowing individuals to allocate WHAT their tax dollars fund via modification of the forms used to file them.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 9:28 AM

Geezer

1) Big govt. is based on money. If you reduce the money, you reduce govt. Anyway, it could be done by paypal.

2) I'm dubious of much of the progress, or the idea that revolutions move in the wrong direction. Outside of communist revolutions, I think they do okay.

Anthony.

I assure you that I was extremely poor, and am still poor, but a buck is a nominal fee compared to a trillion.

I said a veto had to be backed by solid logic, which is to say, you have to prove that the burden of a stamp and a money order is a larger burden than that of taxes.

That said, I'll grant your conditional veto: Paying taxes will have to be free under the new Fivver law that removes wage garnishes.

I would like to propose my own amendment to the Fivver plan:

You should get the bills for whomever is actually getting the money. That way you would not only be aware of the amount that govt. is taking, but that you would become aware of where it was going.

I get a school tax bill which tells me how much money I'm feeding into the public education system I abhor. But I don't get a bill from the military for the War in Afghanistan. I should. I think support for the war would sink fast if people had to write out a check for it, and esp. when they realized how much larger it was than the school tax.

Curiously, you are told about taxes that go for "good" things. You pay "school tax" and you pay "medicare tax" and then you pay "social security tax" and then you pay "TAX" and the last one, you are assured by politicians in their doublespeak "goes for things like schools and medicare and social security." No, it doesn't. It goes for war. You just don't want to send us a bill that says "War Tax."

Fivver,

I want to veto the Fair Tax on the grounds that it's unfair. Here's my logic:

IIRC, Fair Tax is a sales tax. Almost the entire income of the poor, and most of the income of the middle class, goes to purchasing various types of products that are susceptible to a sales tax.

By contrast, very little of the income of the wealthy goes to purchases of goods and services, most of it is invested in securities and derivatives. For the super rich, it's almost all international derivatives.

Under the Fair Tax, the poor would pay the full amount, and the middle class pretty close, whereas the wealthy would pay a much lower percentage, and perhaps a much lower actual dollar amount. I know a lot of people with very high incomes who purchase almost no US consumer goods and services.

The resulting tax is very regressive.

Additionally, any new tax would have to be conditional on the repeal of any old tax. The recent attempt to pass the fair tax actually did not include in the bill any repeal of any other tax, which is what is most likely to happen with it if congress were to enact it.

So, yes, you're right, congress would react to the failure to pay by enacting a new tax, like the fair tax, but they would not repeal the old one.

Hero

I take it that you're opting out unconditionally.

Geezer

Assume that when we say revolution we're being metaphorical, and that no one is going to take up arms against this govt., if only because the other side has nukes and predator drones

What about the current state of affairs would you like to see change?

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Monday, December 6, 2010 9:36 AM

Frem

Would you accept the Fivver amendment in connection with the Frem allocation plan?

I disagree about knocking over the govt. The actual history on this one I think is very clear, and the Congo shows it pretty well: The removal of govt. doesn't cause chaos, it's the removal of a national deterrent that keeps meddlers out. Iraq echoes this situation. It was not *really* that the iraqis started killing each other, at least, not anywhere near the way that Saddam Hussein was killing them, and everyone else, but what *did* happen in Iraq and the Congo was that opportunists from the outside came in and started kill them, and in Iraq, it was the US, Israel Saudi Arabia et al.

Assume what I said to geezer, we're not burning the concept of governance to the ground, we're removing the tyrannical killing machine called DC from our govt, which presently kills at least a million a year and has for some time. I think in a recent thread I added it up to 5 million if you take a right wing view of it. That's an annual holocaust. I can see no reason not to get rid of such a govt.

But I agree someone would have to protect us from slaughter in that time. We have a military, and each state has a national guard.

If we have a metaphorical revolution, those institutions will continue to exist unless some policy suggested here changes that. At the moment, I think the only suggestions have been minor modifications to the tax code.

So, what would you change?

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Monday, December 6, 2010 9:38 AM

Oh, and I fully believe that Hero would change nothing. He might have some issues with Obama's latest changes, I'm not sure, but I actually forgot about him when I was posting this. I suspect even Rap would change a thing or two.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 10:08 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Geezer

1) Big govt. is based on money. If you reduce the money, you reduce govt. Anyway, it could be done by paypal.

If you reduce the money, you reduce government services. Unless you have a way to control where the government spends the reduced income you propose, do you think the government - or even the majority of the people - are going to want spending reductions in the areas you do? If there's not enough coming in from folks who are supposed to be supporting SSA or Medicare, because folks believe they can get away with not paying, what happens to the folks who depend on those programs?

Quote:
2) I'm dubious of much of the progress, or the idea that revolutions move in the wrong direction. Outside of communist revolutions, I think they do okay.

Having grown up in the segregation era, and having been conscripted by the government to fight its wars, I'm not so dubious.

Name some 'good' revolutions of the last 100 years. That'd be real overthrows of governments, and not liberation from colonial powers, which is something else.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, December 6, 2010 11:29 AM

HERO

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Hero

I take it that you're opting out unconditionally.

Nope. I'd love my side to win, but that isn't likely in the short term since there are so many sides. Long term, well if freedom really is the natural state of man, then America as I understand it would ultimately triumph...but why wait? Lets just skip to the end, I think the better approach is Mutual Assurred Destruction.

Start your revoluntion and the minute things fly apart we wipe out everyone everywhere (if we confine it to our own country then other countries will impose their own solution on us).

How's that for counter-revolution? Your going to take your Constitutional Republic with all its systemic unrealiability and incremental change for the better or we just burn the whole fracking thing down.

On second thought maybe there's a happy medium we can find between total destruction and fragmented anarchy...perhaps we need some new form of govt...one with more midgets and lollypops.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 11:37 AM

Geez

1) I don't care, so I'm not really a fair judge, I'd just assume the whole thing go away.

2) I didn't get the impression that Fremism was intended to touch soc. sec, medicare, or state programs, but just federal spending of the federal income tax.

3) If you remove revolutions against colonial rule I don't think you have a representative sample if you're also including communists, since communist revolutions are funded from the outside by China, and used to be Russia, so don't represent independence minded revolutions, they represent imperialism.

Anti-colonial movements *are* independence minded, and PN has a point in that we are de facto a colony, in that our laws are determined by those who control our currency, and that those people are not use but and international banking cartel. Ergo, we're not an independent state.

4) Still, you can have a revolution that is pro-independence, anti-colonial and still end up with a disaster.

It's important to remember though, much of what we think of as revolution (ZANU-PF, ANC) are not actually govts. that came to power through revolution, but rather were elected after election laws were changed to be more inclusive.

5) Revolution is a metaphor. I think that the revolutionaries of the board are Ron Paul revolutionaries, and actually just want to elect a different govt, not Fidel Castro revolutions.

The problem is that the military style revolution is just usually not possible without outside help, and if you accept such help, you become a colony.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 11:42 AM

My main point here was not to discuss the merits or lack there of of armed rebellion or regime change but to see if we had any common ground we could come to.

Particularly, I think that we have the same problems we would like to solve, but we have currently incompatible solutions. I was wondering if we could have compatible solutions, but we're having a lot of trouble, lets see if we can just stick to the reform of tax policy for the moment, unless someone has a better idea.

DT's Tariff:

I want to propose an import tariff. America represents a secondary market for east asia, and they get that market for free. Maybe a 10-20% tariff on imported goods.

Another idea:

Resource tax

A "resource drain" tax. If anything you do takes anything of value from the US, oil, minerals, fish, then you have to pay for it, 50% of the proceeds from the sale.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 12:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
You can't ask poor people and people with bad credit to write checks.

That's just logistics. You can have Tax Payment Centers where people can pay with cash. Just like the power bill.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 1:23 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"That's just logistics. You can have Tax Payment Centers where people can pay with cash. Just like the power bill."

Hello,

Logistics matter. With free tax payment I'll vote YES on Proposition Pay the Government Yourself.

***********

Resource tax:

"A "resource drain" tax. If anything you do takes anything of value from the US, oil, minerals, fish, then you have to pay for it, 50% of the proceeds from the sale."

I vote VETO on the 'Resource Drain Tax' on the grounds that it will utterly destroy our industry (selling any product overseas would become prohibitively expensive.) I may consider a much smaller tax, but keep in mind that this is a tax on all exports of virtually any variety.

***********

My Proposition 1:

Proposition Representative Participation:

For the first time in History, we have the technology to enable every single voter to be heard in swift, efficient manner. From now on, each new Bill debated in congress will be published by the government and voted on by the individual voter before it is voted on by their representatives. Receipts of all votes will be generated, with the voter receiving a copy. Depending on the volume of legislation being proposed and considered, one day a week or one day each month will be designated as a Voting Day, with a Federal Law entitling every employee 1 hour away from work to vote that day.

The representatives from a state will be issued the results from their constituency before they make their vote. Voting records will be prominently displayed. Every political advertisement from any representative will require a 3 second follow-on display tag in Bold Letters that says, "CONTRAVENES THE WILL OF THEIR CONSTITUENCY X% OF THE TIME."

My Proposition 2:

Sunrise, Sunset Clause

Every Law created (with the exception of Constitutional Amendments) shall have a Sunset clause of at least 4 and no more than 10 years. The year of the Sunset, the law will be reconsidered by the voters and must pass through the process again.

My Proposition 3:

Budgetary Participation

Every year, government programs will be broken into major categories and listed on a voting form. The funding for any wars, police actions, or military engagements will always have a separate listing. The voters will prioritize these programs from 1-10 (or however many) and the following year, these programs will receive percentages of funding based on these selections.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 1:33 PM

FREMDFIRMA

I still like my explosive collars idea...

-F

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Monday, December 6, 2010 3:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
With free tax payment I'll vote YES on Proposition Pay the Government Yourself.

Yes.

Quote:
Proposition Representative Participation:

Yes.

Quote:
Sunrise, Sunset Clause

Yes.

Quote:
Budgetary Participation

Y-yes...but I prefer Frem's version. I pick the categories I want to fund, and my money funds those categories and ONLY those categories. I would pay taxes happily if this were the case.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 3:58 PM

Anthony,

I need to clarify the resource drain tax proposal. If a foreign corporation, for example BP, sets up inside the united states for the purpose of taking resources from the US, as their business, and then shipping them out, why should they be able to devalue the US for free? And then make a profit off of it?

Think of it this way. If you live in a state which is sitting on a one trillion dollar resource, and has, say, a lot less than that in actual cash, then along comes some foreign corporation who digs wells and mines and removes that resource, and carts it off. Under the current model, they don't have to pay anything for that trillion, and afterwords, said state is much much poorer because they no longer have the resource.

How would this kill all commerce? I think it would just discourage global resource theft.

On the referendum voting scheme, I would accept it if it could be accompanied by an amendment limiting the length of the both written and implied text to a point where the voters would be able to adequately study the measures they were voting on.

At RPUSA, we had a proposal to limit bill text to 5000 words, and that all implied text be stated.

Implied text would be when a bill says "This repeals section J from HR 4314" This is insufficient, it would have to say specifically "This repeals the ethanol subsidy from the renewable energies act."

If the people are not made aware of what they are voting for, or it is made difficult for them to find out, the Media will possess an inordinate power over the popular opinion of what the legislation does, and the 4th estate could become a govt. by proxy.

I can easily see a derailed system where the people are given voting choices like

The raise my taxes and kill my gramma act
The let's stop a genocide act
The Evil Corporations get more power act.
The I love puppies act

When in reality such bills might say, if you read the 6,000 pages and then all of the referenced legal changes, respectively:

A Health care bill
Let's invade some sovereign nation
An individual liberty extended
A contract which gives a single corporation the right to capture and enslave anyone at will.

Sorry, that took too long. I mean, it works if everyone knows what they're voting on.

Since you bring up changes in information tech, why not have a system where any law, or any politician, could have its popular support registered automatically at any time?

This is now my "Instant Voting" proposal. The way it works is this. Not only do you vote for people and policies, you can change that vote at any time. This would only enact a suspension of a politician or policy if the registered popularity were to reach below a critical threshold, say 33%. If the votes reached this threshold, the person or item would come up for another special election vote, in a set amount of time, like one month, 3 months, etc.

If the popularity of the person or law returned, it could be reconsidered, and the measure could be considered.

Also, Internet Voting proposal. It's far easier to get to an internet terminal than a voting booth, and it would be easy to make an internet system more secure than the current voting system. This would help enable these sorts of special votes like mine and Anthony's proposals.

Sunset clause, this works for me, if I can't have my Instant Voting, which would cover this.

Budgetary, is this an alternative to the Frem Act? I don't mean exploding collars, I mean the "you send your tax dollars where you want them spend" proposal.

I support the Frem Act, I think most of us do, what's your take on it?

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:07 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"How would this kill all commerce? I think it would just discourage global resource theft."

Hello,

If they take Iron, make steel, assemble it into a car, and ship it to China, then they'd be exporting a resource. Or do you mean to limit your proposal only to raw resources, and not resources that are converted?

"I support the Frem Act, I think most of us do, what's your take on it?"

I responded before I read the Frem act. Let me have a look-see.

ETA:

"The only suggestion I'll offer at the time is simply allowing individuals to allocate WHAT their tax dollars fund via modification of the forms used to file them."

As good a place to vote as any, though we do need to make sure that even the least popular departments receive some level of funding, if only so that they have the resources needed to dismantle themselves.

--Anthony

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:08 PM

For the sake of the removal of all logistics issues can I propose that all elements of evolutionary govt. be online, provided that the system is secure?

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Monday, December 6, 2010 4:13 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"For the sake of the removal of all logistics issues can I propose that all elements of evolutionary govt. be online, provided that the system is secure?"

Hello,

In this case, every citizen would have to be guaranteed X amount of internet access, either by web-cafe voucher or local library.

--Anthony

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Monday, December 6, 2010 5:06 PM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
That's just logistics. You can have Tax Payment Centers where people can pay with cash. Just like the power bill.

Couple of problems with this.

First, it assumes folk will pay. Now they tend to file tax returns because the government already has their money and they probably will get a bit back. If they don't have that motivation, plenty will just skip it altogether, then you have to have someone track them down and make them pay, especially for payroll taxes supporting social programs such as SSA, Medicare, Unemployment and workmen's comp. That's gonna cost a lot more money for collection and enforcement than is currently needed.

Second, as noted before, this is a very inefficient way to collect money. It's labor intensive and subject to a lot more accounting errors than the current withholding system. Utilities are encouraging folks to do direct deposit for this very reason.

You may be philosophically wedded to the idea of the evil fat-cat government running out of money and shutting down, but the folks who rely on SSA, Medicare, food stamps, AFDC, etc. are gonna suffer if it happens.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Monday, December 6, 2010 5:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
You may be philosophically wedded to the idea of the evil fat-cat government running out of money and shutting down, but the folks who rely on SSA, Medicare, food stamps, AFDC, etc. are gonna suffer if it happens.

If this happens, hopefully all those suffering people will fight harder to cut wars, military welfare, and corporate welfare before SSA, Medicare, food stamps, and AFDC are cut.

If indeed the budget does decrease because of changing tax collection methods, it will force the govt, and citizens, to prioritize. This is good.

The point is, private employers should not be conscripted to serve as tax collectors. This is an outdated convenience left over from WWII that should have had its sunset decades ago.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 5:46 PM

Anthony,

Agreed that every american be granted free web access, but I suspect that access to free internet is already far more available than access to polling stations. But, sure, a guarantee of this, yes.

On your amendment proposal to the Frem Act

Quote:

As good a place to vote as any, though we do need to make sure that even the least popular departments receive some level of funding, if only so that they have the resources needed to dismantle themselves.

I would accept this if it were voted on by the people in some manner, otherwise, it could be abused.

My personal belief is that such constraints are unnecessary, because popular consciousness is evenly divided. The argument has long been made that without either social engineering or increased pay scale, no one would be a doctor, or not enough people, but this is not the case in the world, in fact, more people want to be doctors by far than are allowed to be.

Many many people would give money to support the military, but not enough to support the current international campaigns.

Here's the abuse of the amendment that I see: If the govt. decided that concentration camps or domestic spying were "essential" and got to determine the limit, they could allocate large portions of the budget to extremely unpopular programs. Sure, lots of loons would contribute to "some form" of border security, but few would contribute to special hit squads or concentration camps.

So yes, I support your amendment to the Frem Act if it is democratically determined in some way, and cannot be used to support radically bad policy.

As for the resource tax, yes, I meant for raw resource theft. But I see that if we just make a manufactured good loophole, it could be exploited "We're not taking gold, we're taking our new product 'Bucket 'o Gold!"

Even in the example you used, I think if I were to apply the rule it would come out like this:

1. This applies to a foreign company taking a resource, so if Toyota makes cars here, and sells them overseas, they are taking about a ton of iron from the us. That iron ore in a car has a raw value of roughly $100, so 1/2 of that would be $50. Now Toyota would only be paying that if they mined it themselves. If they actually paid the full $100 for the iron ore, or more for the refined steel, than it's theirs.

This rule only applies to resource theft: You dig into the ground and take something that's part of America, you don't pay for it, and then you export it.

Or, in the case of BP, they export it in name only and turn back and sell to the US what they just stole from the US which they didn't pay for.

The acquisition of the raw barrel of oil for $75 if you don't pay for it is definitely draining the cash value of the US.

As for whether American companies should pay for resources, sure, they probably should, but there should be a cost allowance, but it would have to be reasonable, so that they couldn't pretend that it cost them $1000 to mine an ounce of gold (it's actually not cheap, but it's not this much.)

A lot of countries, particularly in Africa, would benefit heavily from this proposal if it were internationalized, since they are often robbed of natural resources without proper compensation. I figure my half is for "if it's valuable, half the value is still more than enough to pay for the mining of the raw resource.

Oh, and I'd like to add an amendment: A company is also responsible for the liability of the damage caused by the mining. If they cause billions in damage getting the resource, they should be charged. I don't think they should be "made to clean it up" because frankly, I don't trust the bull to *fix* the china shop, I suspect he'll just wreck it some more. But the local govt. should clean it up, and some independent parties should fairly assess the cost. If the foreign resource company refuses to pay the cost, their license to mine resources in this country should be revoked.

Now, taking the example of BP: At $75, sure, it's worth something for us to have someone get resources out of the ground, which is why I said 1/2. But remember, BP was drilling for oil at $30 and at $12, so if they only got $37.50, they wouldn't be hurting. My amendment I'm proposing here would also say "You can't come take our oil if you don't pay for the clean up from the last mess you made."

ETA: Toyota almost certainly paid for the iron in the car. In fact, this would be true of virtually every manufactured good.

This is only an issue if some country outsources to the US, to make goods for export, but I don't want to close off that opportunity. But no, I don't think that any non-resource industry would be using resources they hadn't paid for.

My tax ideas are based on things that aren't good for the total value of the US. If someone comes in with a giant Chinese commercial fishery, and fishes thousands of tons of Fish off the coast of the US and then takes them back to China, that's not good for us. Our fish populations are being rapidly depleted by this practice, and they do not have to pay us anything for doing it. We want to discourage this practice.

If you look at the income tax, that's a disincentive to work, and more, it's a disincentive to hire Americans, and it's reducing the amount of capital that consumers have to spend, which is hurting the economy. It's clearly detrimental to have an income tax. Certainly I think that you could create a cut off of, say 100k, or 250k, or whatever, in which you could say "below this, that money would go right back into our economy, so let's not tax that income."

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Monday, December 6, 2010 6:01 PM

Geezer

What if taxes were actually optional? You could pay them or not, but if you didn't then you wouldn't have access to certain things. I don't mean social services, I mean like corporations. Maybe you wouldn't be allowed to participate in a corporate scheme if you didn't pay taxes, or if the bank didn't.

I may not be objective on this because I think personal income tax is destructive to the economy, and should be abolished.

We're definitely headed for a financial Armageddon on this issue that TPTB haven't quite realized.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 6:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
You may be philosophically wedded to the idea of the evil fat-cat government running out of money and shutting down, but the folks who rely on SSA, Medicare, food stamps, AFDC, etc. are gonna suffer if it happens.
If this happens, hopefully all those suffering people will fight harder to cut wars, military welfare, and corporate welfare before SSA, Medicare, food stamps, and AFDC are cut.

If indeed the budget does decrease because of changing tax collection methods, it will force the govt, and citizens, to prioritize. This is good.

The point is, private employers should not be conscripted to serve as tax collectors. This is an outdated convenience left over from WWII that should have had its sunset decades ago.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

Geez, screw what I said, CTS nailed it.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 6:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
A lot of countries, particularly in Africa, would benefit heavily from this proposal if it were internationalized, since they are often robbed of natural resources without proper compensation. I figure my half is for "if it's valuable, half the value is still more than enough to pay for the mining of the raw resource.

Yeah, yeah. Very good point.

Or we can require foreign investors invest a certain percentage back into the country they are taking it from.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Monday, December 6, 2010 6:31 PM

CTS,

I don't trust the local govts, but I trust them more than the foreign corporations. Remember the number of companies that *still* given their aid in some for of eugenics or population control "security" etc. The corporation is going to do what aids either itself, or its overlords.

At least the local govts. have a *chance* of doing something that benefits the country. More so if they adopt these sorts of popular reforms on spending.

We need some environmental protection clause in here.

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Monday, December 6, 2010 8:09 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello Dream,

So what is the final form/wording of your resource bill?

--Anthony

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 12:54 AM

Any company taking a natural resource from the ground in its raw for would have to pay for that resource if the resource were to be consumed by another country.

The taxation scheme would be based on the logic that said resource belonged to the people, who would be made poorer by its removal from the country.

It would be structured so as to discourage resource theft, or the devaluation of land. As it stands, corporations can come to the US, or any other country, take precious metals, gems, oil, fish and other valuable resources, and then high tail it home again without paying for them. Something is wrong with this picture. I know that if this law does not apply to domestic corporations then foreign corporations will set up domestic shell corporations to do it, but if those corporations make a profit, then the sale of resources gets taxed anyway.

So I guess that's the minimal phrasing "The sale of US resources is taxable. Resource theft can be taxed as if the entirety is profit to discourage resource theft, and to credit those who pay taxes."

Unlike individual theft, resource theft cannot be done with stealth. Companies taking resources are obvious and we all know who they are. It seems wrong that after the BP oil spill disaster, BP made a profit on the radically bungled theft of US oil, and was then granted more permits to more US oil.

If we want a more universally applicable law, then some similar law should be made about agricultural exports. The US doesn't really need such a law, but much of Africa does, esp. nations where food is grown and sold for export as the people starve.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 4:32 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
If this happens, hopefully all those suffering people will fight harder to cut wars, military welfare, and corporate welfare before SSA, Medicare, food stamps, and AFDC are cut.

Probably not. They'll be too busy trying to get heating for their homes, food for their tables, and healthcare for their sick to do that stuff.

If you have a problem with "...wars, military welfare, and corporate welfare..." by all means stand up against it. Please don't co-opt folks who are just trying to get along into your agenda by threatening their lives and security.

It's sort'a like you're a passenger on a sailing ship that's not saining upwind quite as fast as you think it should, so you decide to destroy the ship and hope to build one you like better out of the pieces before too many other passengers drown.

Quote:
If indeed the budget does decrease because of changing tax collection methods, it will force the govt, and citizens, to prioritize. This is good.

Again, only if their priorities match yours. Is that likely?

Quote:
The point is, private employers should not be conscripted to serve as tax collectors. This is an outdated convenience left over from WWII that should have had its sunset decades ago.

Removing it would increase the cost of government and probably cause all sorts of accounting errors in tax payments. I know that's what you want, but you're just causing other people trouble to advance your agenda.
"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 4:42 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Geezer

What if taxes were actually optional? You could pay them or not, but if you didn't then you wouldn't have access to certain things. I don't mean social services, I mean like corporations. Maybe you wouldn't be allowed to participate in a corporate scheme if you didn't pay taxes, or if the bank didn't.

Then if you opt out, do you get to use the Interstate system, or any U.S. highway? Air travel that relies on Federal air traffic control?

In a libertarian/anarchist dream world the highways'd be privately owned and you'd have a smartpass to charge you for use, and ATC would be private. The fun of the lib/anarch dreamworld is that you have to convince the overwhelming majority of folk to agree to it before you can ethically try to set it up. You want to pull the rug out from under everyone and hope that things will shake down as you hope they will. This seldom turns out well.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 4:47 AM

Geezer

I gotta go with CTS on this one. I don't think she's the one dealing out the fear here. You're painting a catastrophic picture if we remove the NWO, and the poor as helpless and voiceless in the process.

The poor care a lot, and while we work hard, we have more energy to fight this thing, because we're occasionally unemployed. Don't put your views on the populous either. Clearly, if there were a split here, some of them would go with CTS on this one.

Myself, I don't see this fed. govt. as a system of mutual benefit. It seems to be a detriment to all. I think it would be a tougher argument on state govt. Certainly I can't be worried about what happens to TPTB as a result of our actions. Should the govt. fall into chaos. I'll probably just grab some popcorn.

Chaos in the streets is already here. More people die in street violence in the US each year than do in most wartorn countries. Israel/Palestine, Apartheid South Africa, N. Ireland, when they were all in "chaos" is wasn't as violent as our "Peace" and that's just counting inside the US borders, to say nothing of what we do to other nations.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 4:48 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

""The sale of US resources is taxable. Resource theft can be taxed as if the entirety is profit to discourage resource theft, and to credit those who pay taxes.""

Hello,

I understand 'the sale of US resources is taxable.' Though I think maybe you meant export? As in, the export of US resources? Or did you mean the extraction of the resources would be taxable?

'Resource theft' is something I don't understand. What would constitute such a theft?

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 4:52 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"Geezer

I gotta go with CTS on this one."

Hello,

Geezer has veto power, and I'm sure some segment of the population would agree with him. (Setting up purposefully inefficient tax collection in the hopes of crashing the system? Easy sell for any obstructionist.)

So you can't write him off. You have to convince him according to the rules of the game.

--Anthony

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:40 AM

Keep the Shiny side up

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Geezer

I gotta go with CTS on this one. I don't think she's the one dealing out the fear here. You're painting a catastrophic picture if we remove the NWO, and the poor as helpless and voiceless in the process.

No. I'm painting a catastrophic picture where ideas you and CTS are floating cause the social services system to be unable to provide social services at anything near current levels.

Quote:
The poor care a lot, and while we work hard, we have more energy to fight this thing, because we're occasionally unemployed. Don't put your views on the populous either. Clearly, if there were a split here, some of them would go with CTS on this one.

I'd suggest that you not put your views on the populous either. And you still either don't recognize or don't care that a lot of folks who might not back your opinions are going to suffer and die if your plans ome to fruition.

Quote:
Myself, I don't see this fed. govt. as a system of mutual benefit. It seems to be a detriment to all. I think it would be a tougher argument on state govt. Certainly I can't be worried about what happens to TPTB as a result of our actions. Should the govt. fall into chaos. I'll probably just grab some popcorn.

Not sure I could support a platform where you eat popcorn while the most needy die because you've destroyed the infrastructure that supports them.

Quote:
More people die in street violence in the US each year than do in most wartorn countries.

I'd like to see some cites on that before I accept it.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Not sure I could support a platform where you eat popcorn while the most needy die because you've destroyed the infrastructure that supports them.

Let me ask you this. Why do you assume that if tax collection becomes inefficient, that AFDC and food stamps would be the first thing to go as opposed to say, our war in Iraq and Afghanistan?

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 7:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Geezer has veto power,...

I agree.

But what HAVE we proposed that hasn't been vetoed?

I don't see anything yet.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 8:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
Probably not. They'll be too busy trying to get heating for their homes, food for their tables, and healthcare for their sick to do that stuff.

I think this assumption is... disputable.

Rather, what I think is more likely to happen if the tax collection becomes inefficient is that there will be a new agency, maybe something like the Tax Enforcement Agency, where TSA-type dudes go door to door and collect taxes on those who have fallen behind. Taxes will actually rise to pay for this new agency.

I don't think the govt will ever live with less money. They will just jack up enforcement.

If you are against this, that is fine.

But people on Food Stamps and AFDC actually starving because the govt doesn't have enough money? Not going to happen. They WILL get their money.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 8:08 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

This thread was started on a very difficult premise. One might even think it is an impossible premise.

It is not Geezer's fault that he doesn't agree. I myself am vetoing things whenever I think an argument of any validity can be made against the thing, regardless of my personal opinions. If any group might object, it behooves us to object for them and with their arguments. Otherwise we are soft-balling our ideas and not subjecting them to proper scrutiny.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 9:15 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
It is not Geezer's fault that he doesn't agree.

Not faulting him on not agreeing. I support his right to veto, in this imaginary scenario.

But objections need to be subject to the some scrutiny as well, no? We can try to convince each other that certain proposals are possible?

Though, admittedly, I don't think Geezer sounds like he can be convinced.

--Can't Take (my gorram) Sky

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010 10:24 AM