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Thread: Vindicated

  1. #31
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tim929
    Well...in terms

    of meaningless and useless wants,one need only watch television with a jaded eye for a couple hours to discover that

    people are largely controlled by meaningless and useless wants.Between hollywood and marketing firms bombarding our

    children with all the things that will make them happy,we train peoples perceptions to the point that if we arent

    spending money,then life just doesnt have purpose.

    BTW,the machine of capitalism does in fact have a soul.It

    soul is warped and twisted and dark and it feeds on the misery of others for profit.
    That is not a soul, but

    a psuedo-soul, the way I am casting it. It's a virtual soul, a cyber soul, an imitation soul, or a poor abstraction

    of soul. It can be that because it has no tether or lifeline to actual soul, that would feed it soul.

    I don't

    think capitalism was originally intended to be that way. It originally came from human beings and their

    souls.

    Again the theme, like any theme of foolishness, is a state of being cut off from a big picture -- in this

    case a big picture of humans that created a machine to meet human interest. Now the machine "operates independently"

    from that interest or soul; as does the psuedo-understanding of that machine -- contemporary economics.

    You seem

    entirely correct with your first point.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  2. #32
    Man of La Pancha
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    Ironically, this article

    actually supports my argument in another threat (an old one) about the rich paying more taxes. Can we please use

    that table (well, what used to be a table but is now just a bunch of hard-to-read text) to prove that the rich pay

    all of the taxes in this country? If you make less than $29K per year, you pay an average of 3% in taxes...and

    everyone complains about how the rich get all the tax breaks...they're the ones paying all of the taxes!!!

    I

    noticed this exact situation this year. When I was a student, I got every single federal tax dollar back in my

    paycheck. Now, I pay a truckload of taxes. I can't complain, though, because I make a lot more than I used to.

  3. #33
    Phero Dude
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    Or it just needs a tune

    up.Capitalism doesnt have to be a ravenous beast bent on devouring everything it comes in contact with.It doesnt

    need to function like a cancer or a deadly virus that infects its host only to lead to the death of the host and by

    default its own demise.One of the resons we came up with labor laws in this country was to curb its apetite for

    human misery.Thats another reson we came up with the minimum wage.Why does OSHA exist?All these things come together

    to help direct and control the beast that is capitalism.

  4. #34
    Phero Dude
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    Pancho,the reason that "the rich"

    pay such high taxes is that "the rich" are comprised mostly of business owners.there are very few people in this

    country theat qualify as "rich" that dont own thier own business.And by taxing "the rich," we are in fact taxing our

    employers.Many of the complaints that come about the rich is the individuals that serve as CEO's and so forth that

    have tax shelters to avoid paying high taxes inspite of seven and eight figure incomes.

    This is actualy a big

    part of my argument.The taxes that I refer to as increasing are the taxes on employers.Eighty percent of the jobs in

    the united states are created in companies that have fewer than two hundred employees.Those businesses are called

    "small businesses."When we tax those folks,we are in fact taxing our own ability to make a living and handing it to

    a government so that they can dole it back to us alittle at a time.After paying for the enormous buracracy and the

    millitary industrial complex and so forth.

  5. #35
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tim929
    Or it just needs

    a tune up.Capitalism doesnt have to be a ravenous beast bent on devouring everything it comes in contact with.It

    doesnt need to function like a cancer or a deadly virus that infects its host only to lead to the death of the host

    and by default its own demise.One of the resons we came up with labor laws in this country was to curb its apetite

    for human misery.Thats another reson we came up with the minimum wage.Why does OSHA exist?All these things come

    together to help direct and control the beast that is capitalism.
    What is interesting about all these is that

    they are external laws. You let the beast run wild, then try to damage control. (Reminds me of western medicine.)

    Are there more "internal" things we could do to add some soul back to the machine? Wouldn't that be maximally

    efficient?

    The idea of radically revising the chartering process, and hence the very nature of corporations, was

    my fundamental attempt to address this issue. But in no way do I regard that idea, at least in the way I sketched

    it, as adequate.
    Last edited by DrSmellThis; 11-13-2005 at 02:46 AM.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  6. #36
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by tim929
    The taxes that

    I refer to as increasing are the taxes on employers.Eighty percent of the jobs in the united states are created in

    companies that have fewer than two hundred employees.Those businesses are called "small businesses."When we tax

    those folks,we are in fact taxing our own ability to make a living and handing it to a government so that they can

    dole it back to us alittle at a time.After paying for the enormous buracracy and the millitary industrial complex

    and so forth.
    There is some insight here. It's not taxes per se, but a particular facet and effect of taxes.



    That is important, because you want to be able to act collectively as a society to do things, and doing so

    requires, at least, something like government and taxes. You end up needing a different principle than

    either "small government" or "low taxes" for that reason. Those principles translate into "no cooperative societal

    projects", which would be self defeating for society.

    But if you say you just have to make "exceptions" to the

    small government/low taxes "rule", like people usually do, then you are left without a real, usable concept. So that

    is not a solution.

    Do you see we need a new way of thinking about it? A concept with a bunch of necessary

    exceptions is sign of a need for a better concept. It's OK when you say government is too big, or taxes are too

    high. But these are complaints and not solutions. A solution requires clear, optimal concepts that people can

    organize around, whereas complaints do not. It doesn't even work to say minimal taxes/govt, because minimizing

    something is like a complaint, not a solution. In other words, there have to be positive concepts, not negative

    ones, if you want to create something with a meaningful purpose.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  7. #37
    Phero Dude
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    Our government was initialy

    created to include local,county,state and federal governments.Many of the things that we see being handled at the

    federal level were orriginaly intended to be dealt with at the local or county or state level.Unfortunatly,many

    local,county and state governments lacked the recources to handle some of them so as a result,the feds were asked to

    step in.Corruption at the state level meant that your county got short changed while the neighboring county got the

    lions share of the state funding.Cities or towns were neglected because the county seat had ties to some other

    town,and they got the lions share.

    The existance of an equitable method of tax spending required federal

    intervention.Unfortunatly,in this day and age we see ass h*les like Ted Kennedy being re-elcted time and time again

    simply for thier ability to "bring home the bacon." The pork you can secure for your state will dictate weather or

    not you get a second term or get kicked to the curb.Thats one of the resons that we have Naval instalations in

    Wyoming.

  8. #38
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Your idea here idea is

    localization (a more general word than "federalism") of societal cooperation, is it not? This principle needs to be

    rigorously applied as appropriate. Certain standards can be even nationalized without Federal command and control

    (as was the case with Reagan's block grant program).

    At the same time, the power of unified societal

    cooperation should not be underestimated. But this simple concept gets translated into bloated, hopelessly complex

    inefficiencies somehow. What is responsible for this?
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  9. #39
    Phero Dude
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    Well...the general idea was that

    the average "New American" didnt have alot of trust for a bloated and disconnected "Big Brother"style government

    that was located many miles away.The purpose behind having a local government at all was that a local government can

    identify and respond to the needs of the local people with far greater efficency that a federal government located

    twenty days ride away.Try getting federal authorities to respond from Washington D.C. to Oregon or California or

    Washington in 1890.It took many weeks and there was absoulutly no gaurantee that anything would come of it.All the

    federal types were from the east coast and had thier own issues to contend with.

    A local,county or state

    agency,with federal guidelines to follow could respond much more quickly and have a better grasp on the local

    political climate and conditions.Things that some city dweller from D.C. wouldnt have a clue about.Even in the

    1970's folks in D.C. wondered to themselves if Oregon was still the "wild west." They had no idea that us folks on

    the west coast (with the exception of hollywood) had real flushing toilets and electric lights.In 1983 I was in

    Virginia and was asked quite seriously by a woman at a wedding reception if there were bears in our

    neighborhoods.She had no idea that we had paved roads here in the west.I had a tough time believeing that people

    could be so disconnected.

    That disconnection is dangerous.Putting too much influence and power in the hands of

    the terminaly stupid can have dire rusults for everyone.One need only look at the current mess in the middle east to

    see that happening.centralizing government was what our founding fathers hopped to avoid.But we got it anyway.And

    its very,very expensive.

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