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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
You of course refer to the 50% of Americans who pay ZERO income taxes, right?
Who vote for Obama and squeal for government health care (and mortgage guarantees and student loan forgiveness and government child care and free abortions and...)
I'm amazed how people can read Ayn Rand and not realize that Ayn Rand seemed to abhor 99.9% of people and would almost certainly abhor them.
In fact, which major party fights taxes? Who has it built into every campaign platform? Hmmm? (Hint: not the one in the White House)
And I don't think the point of her books is so much anti-taxation as anti-restrictive government. Yes, there's a lot in there about money, but really, the characters don't rebel when they're taxed, they do so when they're prevented from pursuing creative work--again, a very Russian sentiment, why else did so many Soviet writers risk their lives to write samizdat poetry?
And yeah, there are arguments to be made for government restrictions, but it isn't the right alone that against them: reading The Omnivore's Dilemma recently I was struck by how Pollan sympathetically paints the Polyface Farms owner who wants to operate a slaughterhouse out of his farm. Yeah, I realize that food processing laws may not have had small farm operations in mind, but that doesn't mean they're some sort of insidious plot against innocent citizens just trying to slaughter their chickens in the open air.
Anyway, I think you have to read Rand as a product of a certain background, time, and place and enjoy her for what she primarily was: a darned good storyteller. I know plot is out of favor, but despite plopping windy polemic rants in unfortunate places, she had a great sense of timing and action. Now, why the left cares so much about discrediting her I can't figure out. Other than, maybe, she inspires such hatred because her books ARE fairly compelling?
But you seem surprised
When it pinned you down to the bottom of the tank
Where you can't turn around"
-- a NW songwriter
the writer, with whom so many are obsessed obsessed obsessed about (no more name obsession please, me included mr sex advice editor) strikes me as a killer whale.
morning news mentioned unemployment extensions. i say thank god my benefits were cut the couple of times i received unemployment. those gov't handouts were mighty helpful in helping indulge my loving laziness -- the path of least resistance is quite natural in humans as it is with water.
I see nothing wrong with a system where that pays the best people for the best service (or more cheaply for lesser service), out of mutual respect for those who work hard for their money.
And I don't understand the red herring bible beater connection to Objectivism you make, I really don't think the two could be any more opposite. Unfortunately I got suckered into even commenting on it.
ever heard of sales tax?
Oh, geeh. Really? Cheerfully? And what do you personally get from this? Most likely if you are receiving any benefits from this payment, then it is a really SMALL amount or you are actually only paying sales tax on your candy canes.
But, here's the thing: the government has held onto that accumulation of cash throughout the previous year, put it in the bank and collected interest on it, or loaned it to another entity with-interest. So, even if these "freeloaders" (as I'm sure you like to call them) end up getting money back, that money has nevertheless been working on behalf of the government to help pay for all the goodies you enjoy, but for which you apparently mistakenly believe others don't contribute.
So, seriously, shut your greedy little, LaRouchey spewing pie-hole, because any jerk who can claim others are freeloading off the gubamint teat while at the same time advocating the policies of a convicted tax cheat doesn't have a fucking clue about which they speak. (And any subsequent claims of NOT being a Libertarian will be taken with the level of skepticism such would merit, since, IME, I've never met a Randian who WASN'T at the very least a closet LaRouche-ite as well.)
Like dear Ayn, I too love self-reliance, individual liberty, hard work, and enlightened self-interest.
The problem is, in the Ayn Randiverse, the ability to make lots of money is inexorably tied to all other virtue. A virtuous person must first be good at making money, and being good at making money seems to automatically convey all other virtues upon that person.
That's just not true. If I were good at making money, I'd probably be an objectivist too. But, I'd still be liberal in today's corpocratic dystopia.
The simple fact that today's real-life conservatives who call themselves objectivists blythely ignore is: individual liberty ≠ to corporate liberty. Where a big corporation can trample individual rights, the good ideas suffer.
What do I personally get from this? A sense that I am a contributing member of society (and roads, and wastewater systems, and a healthier smarter fellow citizens).
(this post is starting to sound like the Life of Brian, no?)
And, on the subject of taxes, most Scandinavians and Finns pay lots of taxes and are happy with their lives. And most seem pretty middle class with nice houses and cars.
Seriously? Are you that willfully obtuse? Or just plain stupid?
Look out your window - what do you see? Do you see streets and sidewalks, power lines, garbage and recycling bins, perhaps a water main or sewer drain or fire hydrant? Do you see police cars and fire trucks and aid cars and repair and service vehicles? Do you see stop signs and crosswalk signs and parking signs and exit signs and directional signs? Do you see schools and hospitals and police and fire stations?
Or do you live in a fucking cabin in the middle of nowhere? Because that's the ONLY place you COULD live (assuming of course it's not in a government-protected National Forest) and not be surrounded by all the "little" benefits you - and me, and @6 and every SLOGger here - personally get in exchange for our tax dollars.
Cheerful? I'm fucking ECSTATIC to receive that level of benefit - and so much more - for a rather modest annual contribution.
Kinda like a lot of conservative "Christians" in that way to take inspiration from Chicago Fan's original post.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/30/pf/taxes…
"You've got a larger and larger share of people paying less and less for the services provided by the federal government," says Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. "The concern is that the majority can say, 'Let's have more benefits, spend more,' if they're not paying for it. It's 'free.' That's not a good thing to have."
Mercy-
isn't that what that young Indonesian man ran on-
not taxing 95% of the people while adding new federal entitlements and benefits like health care?
How on earth will he pay for it?....
You demonstrate another basic logical fallacy of the Randians: Talent & skill do NOT equal "working hard." A Chinese woman laboring on a sewing machine for 16 hours a day works much, much harder than the designer of the clothes she's sewing. This isn't to say that the designer didn't really "work," of course she/he did. The point is that there is a difference in how people work-- the whole "work smarter not harder" meme.
So your whole theory breaks down, because you're not really interested in paying people who "work hard," yet they are still vital to bringing the visions of those whom Rand whorships, the "bold thinking man" into fruition.
It's not a big surprise, because Rand was a product of a particular culture in a peculiar moment in history. Her work is a brilliant critique of the emerging Soviet state, but once you remove her theories from that milieu, they quickly break down. Just like Freud, psychoanalysis is geared to curing middle-class Victorians, but has extreme limitations for anything beyond it.
That being said, I have much more respect for Freud than I do for Rand. (And that's saying a lot.)
Bonus for those who have read this far, Google "Ayn Rand flow chart" for a good laugh.
"...still paying payroll, medicare,..."
Yes, paying Social Security and Medicare taxes at rates too low to cover obligations for benefits they will receive.
More free riders....
"Look out your window - what do you see? Do you see streets and sidewalks, power lines, garbage and recycling bins, perhaps a water main or sewer drain or fire hydrant? Do you see police cars and fire trucks and aid cars and repair and service vehicles? Do you see stop signs and crosswalk signs and parking signs and exit signs and directional signs? Do you see schools and hospitals and police and fire stations?"
---- Much of these items you listed for paid for LONG AGO and clearly are not being maintained. So.............your point? You think that your taxes today actually pay to build roads? Most NEW roads are paid for by DEVELOPMENT FEES, not you.
"Of course, income taxes don't tell the whole story. Workers are also subject to payroll taxes, which support Social Security and Medicare."
Like everyone here has been telling you income taxes alone do not present the whole picture.
You must admire the cheek of Liberals who dare call anybody else 'moron'-
after the titanic incompetence and futility of the past 13 months....
Looks like the most effective and competent governance EVER when compared to the staggering greed, incompetency and idiocy of the preceding eight years.
Current Social Security and Medicare rates do not cover the cost of those programs, and employers pay half of them.
More 'expect more that you pay for'.
When considering federal income taxes in combination with payroll taxes, the percent of households with a net liability of zero or less is estimated to be 24% this year, according to the Tax Policy Center's estimates."
Now, 10% of the country is unemployed. That gets you down to 14%, and I assure the 14% are still paying property taxes, sales taxes, state income taxes, and similar. No one is living in this country and paying nothing. You want to know where the tax burden isn't falling? Look at capital gains- unearned income that's being taxed at a much lower rate than income earned with the sweat of our brows.
There's morally indefensible in your tax system for you.
Well, Obama ran up more debt in 13 months that the preceding eight years, and we do seem to have gotten our debtor moneys' worth of staggering greed, incompetency and idiocy for our investment from the current administration.....
what part of "Income tax" eludes you?
Do you think Obama should demand that the lucky 50% cheerfully pay even a little Income Taxes rather that promising not to raise their non-existent taxes?
Does it seem reasonable to make not taxing 95% of the country your platform when we must borrow 43% of every dollar spent by the Federal Government?
You get what you pay for.
Pay people not to work and you get more unemployed people.
Half of the unemployed have been so six months or longer, an historic figure. And every time Obama extends unemployment benefits that figure will grow.
The unemployed will, strangely, usually not find a job until the week their benefits (finally) expire.
Odd coincidence, don't you think?
gosh I don't think so-
perhaps if you hum a few bars I will recognize it...
Your lucky clients are obviously getting just what they pay for.
Debt as of 1/30/2001: $5,716,071,000,000
Debt as of 1/30/2009: $10,632,080,000,000
An increase of $4,916,009,000,000.
Debt as of 1/30/2009:$10,632,080,000,000
Debt currently: $12,278,636,000,000
An increase of $1,646,556,000,000
Source: US treasury department.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/repor…
There you go again. Pretending that not paying any federal income taxes == not paying any taxes. Given that number of times this fallacy has been pointed out in this thread, one can only conclude that are intentionally being dishonest.
you need to keep up (admittedly the debt is growing soooo fast it is difficult...)
The debt limit was raised to $12.394 trillion by H.R. 4314, which was signed into law on December 24, 2009 (Pub.L. 111-123). A further increase in the U.S. debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion by H.J.Res. 45 was sent to the president on February 4, 2010. President Barack Obama signed this ceiling of $14.3 trillion on February 12, 2010.
Current- $14.3 Trillion.
In 2000 the debt was $5.6 trillion.
In 2008 the debt was $9.9 trillion-
$4.3 trillion in 8 years.
current debt- $14.3 trillion
$4.4 trillion accumulated in 2009 and two months of 2010.
I am a bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad man
Ok, but the the clothes designer (in a vacuum environment) essentially gave the Chinese factory worker a job in the first place. Ingenuity creates jobs, wealth, and should be rewarded justly. So yeah hard work is not always equal to profit, the Chinese factory worker is kinda SOL, but it's better than being without a job. I can't think of a system that works that rewards the factory worker over the job creator, or worse, props up an incompetent factory worker or an incompetent job creator.
@30
Mad angry or mad insane?
Entropy prevents useful societies from giving up taxation.
Maybe these infrastructures aren't being maintained where ever YOU live, but outside MY window I see the garbage and recycling trucks, police cars, ambulances, fire engines, public buses and city worker vehicles going by all the time. My lights and heat work, and my water runs when I turn on the tap. I can drive down my street, or any of the streets for about as far as I can drive, without ruining my suspension - or worse - in ruts, potholes or crevasses. I can be reasonably assured that the traffic lights will work, that the streetlights will come on (and go off) when expected, that my bus will show up close to its scheduled time, and that if the idiot in the car coming out of the alley doesn't see me on my scooter and nails me, that the police and aid units will arrive to make sure I'm okay.
From MY viewpoint, I'd have to say all these are being maintained at a quite adequate level. IME, when the services of government employees are required, they pretty much show up in a reasonable amount of time and get the work done - whether it's replacing a blown transformer (as they did right out in front of my house a few weeks ago), checking for interruptions to my natural gas line (as PSE did at my office a couple of months ago), making sure my garbage and recycling doesn't pile up, clearing the dead leaves out of the street, picking me up off the ground where I'd been thrown after being hit by the car, or whatever else is required - with general speed and efficiency.
And I'm quite certain those services AREN'T being paid for by some long-dead taxpayer from 50, or 20, or even 5 years back. I pay for them every day.
thugs woulda taken ayn rand and beat her to shit
they would taken her moolah from all those books
she might have done what many people did back in about 900 ad the last time we tried that no gumming thing--go up to some toher thugs and say "okay lord and master agree to be your serf, for life, and you will protect me from the viking rapist enslaver raiders and i will get one bowl of food right now so i do not die of starvation then i can work the rest of my life for you as a serf on susbsis tence level w you getting all excess corn i grow" and boy boy oh boy ayn rand woulda been sooooooo happy to become a serfslave like that in that free market no gummint nirvana because her choice to enserfify herself woulda been
A FREE INDIVIDUAL CHOICE!
So remember, there was a time of no government it was called the dark ages and boy oh boy did we allhave FREEDOM then and our FREE CONTRACTS gave us the mahvelous FREE MARKET BENEFITS of being serfs !!!
otherwise undesirable people might wander into our neighborhoods or go to school with our kids
Without my taxes (and everyone's taxes) supporting government, it would be much, much worse than living on a desert island or living in the middle of the wilderness, as @16 wrote.
Without government supported by the taxes of the citizens, private corporations would have long ago bought up ALL the land and property. They would own everything and would control the costs and supply of everything. Want a loaf of bread? They can charge you $1000 for it because it's unavailable anywhere else. Of course, since you don't have the money to pay for that, they'll happily loan you money from the company owned bank, charging whatever interest rates they want. And you'd take it because you'd have no other choice. You would be indebted to "the corporation" for the rest of your life, working for them to pay off the debt they gave you. You'd never escape.
That nightmare scenario is exactly the way things have operated in the past. Lords and serfs, Kings and peasants, corporations and labor.
I'm more worried about psychopaths than Randians.
PSYCHOPATHS AMONG US
http://www.hare.org/links/saturday.html
"And it's really just beginning. Psychopathy may prove to be as important a construct in this century as IQ was in the last (and just as susceptible to abuse), because, thanks to Hare, we now understand that the great majority of psychopaths are not violent criminals and never will be. Hundreds of thousands of psychopaths live and work and prey among us. Your boss, your boyfriend, your mother could be what Hare calls a "subclinical" psychopath, someone who leaves a path of destruction and pain without a single pang of conscience. Even more worrisome is the fact that, at this stage, no one -- not even Bob Hare -- is quite sure what to do about it. "
The stupidest thing about Randians to me is that they must know it is almost impossible become a self-made successful person unless you live in a successful productive society. You can't have that without some form of taxation.
now dear, don't pout-
white seattle liberal was merely agreeing with you.
Can you imagine a Randian raising a whole entire fetus? It's my take that it takes years of pouring culture, or whatever it is, into a baby to make a person. I think the fetus people are overlooking that, or indicating they have no connection to their own children's childhood. No worries--hate that crap myself--it's just what our species requires, boots on the ground. (monkey noises)
Indeed, I agree. I was indicating a failing of the middle-class Randian worshipers. They would be laughed out of the Rand universe as being mere peons, as they lack "genius," "innovation," and a chiseled jaw. So, to fill this gap in logic, they equate the only virtue Rand recognizes (genius et al) w/ "working hard." It certainly does not.
I did not mean to suggest that all labor is equal. I also don't hold w/ the idea that the Magical Free Market will reward the labor that society values the most and give a pittance for the labor that is of lesser value. I think Bush's bank bailout is a perfect example of why.
Oh, and Mr. Wingnut Troll-- It's useless to repeat the talking points you got off the cable networks. Most people who post on the Slog saw through those lies when they were first spouted. Parroting them only re-inforces the image of conservatives as totally lacking in critical thinking skills. If that's your goal, by all means, continue. Otherwise, come up w/ your own thoughts and interpretations on politics. We can smell ditto-heads a mile away.
Sorry you're bored.
I'll admit, the racist 'abort the blacks' posts from the regulars are a new one for us-
We didn't realize Seattle hipsters were so overt in their racism.
One of life's more depressing realities is that stupid people who make a lot of money (because all they want to do is make a lot of money) think they're smarter than smart people who make very little money because they have other interests. The stupid people with money may then mistakenly come to believe that, since they're smarter than the smart people with less money, they're also better suited to leading, governing and making policy.
Ask a businessman who's smarter -- Donald Trump or Thomas Jefferson -- the businessman will probably tell you that they are each geniuses in their own way; the implication being that Donald Trump is as much a genius at making money as Jefferson was at legal philosophy and politics. The fact that what Jefferson was doing was both more difficult and more important than making money will probably not occur to the businessman.
Of course, if Noam Chomsky teaches us anything, it's that genius in one field (linguistics) does not necessarily translate into genius in all fields (politics, media studies). But as a practical matter, genius at making money is approximately equivalent, as a purely intellectual feat, to genius at Missile Command. And as a display of ethical fortitude, it's pretty much on the level of dropping a rock into a bucket. It's certainly nothing, on its own, to recommend a person as anything other than someone who has a lot of money.
Perhaps psychopaths and Randians are not that far apart? After all, she was an admirer of William Edward Hickman, a forger, an armed robber, a child kidnapper, and a multiple murderer.
see http://www.michaelprescott.net/hickman.h…
They're parasites. How else do you describe them? They benefit from all sorts of institutions paid for by US citizens—the highway system, the courts, public schools, etc.—but just don't feel like paying their share.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1249…
"The ironing is delicious!"-Bart Simpson
You're making the obvious mistake from your perspective, seeing the "Randian" label and assuming that it means "Objectivist" as well. As the behavior of all too many of the "Randians" mentioned in these sorts of articles will tell, rational thought is about the last thing on the mind of these so-called "Ayn Rand-inspired free thinkers". Objectivism is a school of thought, an ideal of behavior to strive for, and the basis for an ethical code. Reading Atlas Shrugged once (... and let's admit it, Galt's speech is damn long, so they skipped it...) does not make you an objective thinker, even though to some it gives a spark of recognition to something they themselves have always felt but never been able to see the shape of. All too many instead get the idea that it'd be great to live in Candy Mountain instead, and like Charlie the Unicorn you find that your first instinct (disbelief of that fantasy) will leave you with more kidneys in the morning.
You weren't suckered into commenting, you just made an invalid assumption about the precepts of the argument. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there who saw something they liked in Ayn Rand's body of work (that Ayn herself would have been aghast to see attributed to her) because they don't want to pay taxes, or because they think it gives them permission to do whatever they want because they are "rugged individualists" (read: "mavericks"). I don't think it's fair to blame the works of Ayn Rand for the wrongheadedness that people try to apply it to in ways it was never meant to go, but it certainly IS fair to blame these "Randians", aka those who got some message out of Atlas Shrugged, but not enough to lead down the path to objective, rational thought as a founding principle of their life.
A lot of right wingers conveniently forget the part where the workers, competent ones of course, are paid very highly for their service and are not mistreated. Nor do the heroes treat their workers like mindless drones and suck out as much as they can.
ALSO, in the book itself, there are things more important than money. Like values, where Francisco is happy with just a small operation as long as it is all his. Giving up a multinational corporation because his values are worth more than money.
AND the reason why you are wrong Chicago fan, is that in Randian philosophy (before she jumped off the deep end),
you pay other people for their work!!!!
That's it, it's that simple, you give equal value for the value you receive. You don't take what's not yours, you trade for what you want!!
Don't be obtuse.
I think I'm gonna go play Bioshock again.
It's free, donchyuknow?
As for her "philosophy", it's perfectly excusable for a college freshman who is being supported by his or her parents to adopt it for a semester. Anything longer than that shows a shocking naivete, and is probably a sign that they shouldn't be trusted with money, or given any real responsibility.
Or we could continue to obsess over the coulda woulda shoulda that this conservative montra creates in people's head. They repeat "but if you're making millions of dollars a year wouldn't you want to keep all of it for yourself?". News flash, the possibility of me, or anyone of these internet commenters, making millions of dollars a year is astronomical, I have a better shot at winning the lottery, and even if I did you could tax me at 95% and I'd still be making boatloads more money than I'm, and everyone else, making now. But for some reason these people want to protect that which will never happen, this dream that one day they'll be millionaires, if only they protect the existing wealth in the system. How come people don't see this as a cult, and how can we show them the light of having real independent thoughts?
And there you've hit the nail squarely on the head. So long as these right-wing minions continue to believe the myth that, if they could only, somehow, make a gazillion dollars, then they too would be able to enjoy all the economic, social and political benefits of such prosperity, then their bosses are perfectly safe. Because, what they continue to fail to understand is that, with the merest handful of exceptions THEY'RE NEVER GONNA GET INTO THAT CLUB. The fat cats at the top have only one objective: to STAY on top. And since their Capitalistic economic model only allows for a relative handful to occupy the upper level of the pyramid, they'll do everything in their quite considerable power to limit access to that level to everyone except the few they choose to let in.
Now, some on the Right will attempt to counter this argument by pointing out that in the past decade or so, more people have become millionaires than at any point in history, and that would be true, so far as it goes. But, as I'm sure anyone who's been paying attention for the last 30 or 40 years has already realized, a million (or 2 or even 10) isn't what it used to be. What they again fail to take into account is that, while there are more millionaires, having a few million in assets these days is still considered solidly "middle class" (if we're to accept Senator McCain's estimation), and therefore places mere millionaires very much on the mid-tiers of the pyramid. Meanwhile, those at the top continue to amass wealth at an obscene rate. And so, they remain on top, because the threshold for reaching the upper levels is continuously moved out of reach of those below.
So, keep dreaming that BIG Dream all you would-be conservative power-brokers, because, so long as you do, and so long as you continue to drink the Kool-Ade of future wealth and access, so long as you continue to work against your own economic and social best interests, the ones at the top pulling your strings will have absolutely nothing about which to worry.
http://somethingpositive.net/
Well that wasn't me. I was intensely into Rand during that period of time in my life too, and I didn't regard myself as a heroic inviolate genius who owed nothing to anyone. I was a little techno geek and what I thought I'd discovered in Rand was a simple, elegant solution to creating workable peaceful and productive human societies. It was the engineering, not the self aggrandizement. I thought I'd discovered the answer to all the world's problems. It was a revelation. You get those at that age.
I'm sure...wait...I Know, a lot of Randians are self absorbed assholes. But a lot of folks are bedazzled as I was by the beautiful simplicity and certainty of it all. Those will eventually figure out that, as Mencken said about every complex problem having an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong, Rand was absolutely brilliant at coming up with those kinds of answers.
@73 - Glad I'm not the only one who thinks about it when Rand comes up. I just finished Bioshock2 last week.
And there are six easy steps to an Anne Coulter Argument
1) Reduce extremely complex ideas into an oversimplified base understanding of the actual content of the subject at hand.
2) Write (or yell) in an overly passionate manner about those new ideas you made from the basic concept of the old ones, which are now completely backwards.
3) Add random quotes from the bible that are taken completely out of context and use them in an irrational manner.
4) Make fun of people who don't agree with you to invalidate their character, instead of engaging in an actual discussion. Use the word "faggot" if possible to de-masculinize them if possible.
5) ?????????
6) PROFIT from people who like hearing other people yell a lot or will jump on any bandwagon that comes their way.
There is a long dark road you are heading down, and it leads ultimately to no one legitimate taking you seriously ever and people constantly trying to throw pies at you in public. Are you ok with this?
Also I was totally trolled. 10/10, would troll again.
#83 Well put!
#84, I think that the current human population can take a few generations off the exponential baby mill. Haven't checked in a while, but pretty sure we just flew by the 7 Billion mark. The world population has increased more in the last decade than the preceding 2 millennia (not centuries). I am so sick and tired of people talking about what a thankless, yet noble, job parenting a child is. If you are going to multiply, that is your choice and it is not obligatory for any of us to admire you for it. I think this is part (on a superficial level) of understanding where Rand was coming from.