Taxation is not stealing

It's amazing to me that we need to spend so much of our time dealing with arguments that have no factual or rational basis. These distractions lessen the time available for developing any positive agenda (trying to reduce human suffering, preserve the planet, systematically explore nature, including human animals). At Daylight Atheism, Ebonmuse spend some time attacking an idea commonly expressed at the FOX sponsored teabagger parties: that taxation is essentially the government stealing your money. As usual, Ebonmuse clearly sets out the argument, then demolishes it. Here's an excerpt, but I highly recommend visiting his site and reading the whole thing:

Libertarians say that taxation is like theft because it takes property from the unwilling. What they ignore, time and time again, is the crucial role of democratic consent. Taxes are not arbitrary impositions decreed by a faceless government. Rather, taxes are the dues we pay in exchange for membership in a society and access to all the services it offers.

The situation can be compared to a private club that charges a membership fee in exchange for providing benefits and amenities to its members. Obviously, the club is within its rights to charge whatever price it believes fair in exchange for this. If you believe the price is too high, you're free to renounce your membership and leave the club. What you're not free to do is to refuse to pay, but demand that you still be allowed to sit in the club and use its facilities.

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Republicans as clowns

Matt Tabbi of Rolling Stone is one of my favorite political writers. Once again, he's on the money with this week's article (entitled "The Class Clowns"), when he points out the buffoonery of the Republicans during the Obama era. Truly, do these guys have any clue as to how they would begin to address any of the major issues facing us?

Following the Republican Party of late has been a movingly depressing experience, sort of like watching Old Yeller die — if Old Yeller were a worm-infested feral bitch who spent the past eight years biting children at bus stops and shitting in neighborhood swimming pools. As a useful force in American politics, the Republicans have been dead for a while now. But in the seven months since Sarah Palin's nomination, they have taken on an intriguing new role: providing much-needed comic relief during dark times, serving as the unofficial rodeo clowns of the Financial Crisis Era.

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Torture as a tool for manufacturing evidence

McClatchy has now found a most intriguing (and, in retrospect, a most predictable) connection.

The Bush administration put relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Read more about it at Koz. And also check out the new disclosure that the Bush Administration did its damndest to destroy a memorandum highly critical of the legality of its decision to torture prisoners. And now we know that Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney personally approved waterboarding. Finally, consider this conversation involving FOX's Shepard Smith and Judith Miller (the Judith Miller), who unrelentingly attack the memos for trying to justify torture. Maybe Miller is in a redemptive phase . . . THEN, listen carefully at exactly 5:07 of the video to hear a walloping Freudian slip by the conservative think-tanker, Cliff May, a guy who claims that waterboarding is fun and games, who accidentally admits that the Bush-approved techniques WERE torture (listen for the critical word is "it"). Yes, Cliff, it was torture and you (and everyone else in the country) know it. Miller raises the point that even Israel, which knows a thing or two about interrogating prisoners, outlawed waterboarding long ago because it is torture. But there's still more. Consider Republican strategist and Cheney-admirer Phil Lusser's "magic eyeballs" in a conversation with Lawrence O'Donnell and Norah O'Donnell. Go to the end of this video and you'll hear Lawrence O'Donnell clean Lusser's clock. It's all falling apart like a house of cards. After years and years of insanity, it's finally happening. Yes, sunshine is the best disinfectant.

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It’s time to start paying as we go

I would think that the economic collapse of the United States has clearly demonstrated that the "free market" is not benevolent when those holding great power in society are not benevolent. Consequently, the best way to run society is to use government to make sure that powerful interests don't run roughshod over regular folks. But what are the proper functions of government, to the extent that government works with markets to allocate goods and services? This question was addressed by economist Jeffrey Sachs in the May 2009 edition of Scientific American:

The reasons include the protection of the poor through a social safety net; the correction of externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions; the provision of "merit goods" such as healthcare and education that society deems to be essential for all its members; and the financing of scientific and technological research that cannot be efficiently captured by private investors. In all these circumstances, the free market system tends to under-provide the resource in question.

Sachs ends his article by indicating that there is no alternative to raising taxes to pay for the services Americans want and need. In particular, this year's deficit "will reach an astounding 1.7 5 trillion, or 12% of GDP." Further, the government debt held by the public will rise from 40% of GDP in 2008 to 65% of GDP in 2013. According to Sachs, this continued buildup of public debt "will threaten the well-being of our children and our children's children."

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Anti-gay, or pro-discrimination?

Following on previous comments about gay marriage (1, 2, 3), prop 8, and the increased change of falling skies... I was very pleased to encounter this extremely well argued vid on Ed Brayton's blog. He demonstrates both strong logic, and the ability to construct his argument from facts. Something he demonstrates to be lacking in the christian opposition. If our opponents actually argued like this, the debate might even be interesting! I'm experiencing some issues with WordPress and embedded video - so click here for the video on Youtube

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