taxes are good for america and Americans

Imp has said time and time again that taxes are bad, yet he has never stated his argument.
I shall state my argument for taxes.

taxes are an extremely beneficial for Americans. It is from taxes that we have an infrastructure that is the envy of the world.
The real strength of any country lies in its infrastructure. Look at the most advance countries in the world, the ones with the
highest standard of living, the most desirable ones to live in. What do they have in common?
One of their common denominators is a strong infrastructure.What does that mean? It means they have
well maintained roads and bridges, a strong police, fire departments, schools for all ages, libraries in every city.
Here in the U.S we have national park system that is the envy of the world and those parks are maintained by taxes.
Our lives are enhanced by these things kept strong by taxes. Let us look at a world without taxes.

The day begins in the house normal enough. Can’t get on the Internet because it has become a pay per view Internet.
and I can’t afford it right now. I have to walk to work as the dirt roads have chewed up my tires, so I need new tires.
No buses or any kind of public transportation because they come from taxes. I am mugged going to work but can’t do anything
about it because it has become a pay per use police and fire departments so one really hopes you don’t have any kind of
issue because it going to cost big money. House catches fire and can’t pay cash on the spot, bye bye house.
Children go to work because there are no public schools. After work, they just come home because
there are no public parks to play in. I hear about the many terrorist attacks but without the military or justice department
we cannot combat terrorism. the murder rate rivals the worst part of Africa but without an infrastructure to deal with the dead
bodies, they just lie on the streets stinking up the whole street and bringing diseases.
In other words, everything you take for granted is funded in part or whole by taxes. Even the very air you breath, because
there is no EPA to keep air pollution down, every part of the country has air like LA or Huston. and the food you eat and the water
you drink is very, very suspect because no one is making sure it is clean and sanitary. Diseases run rampant because there
are no public agencies dealing with such matters. In other words, the U.S. has become a third world country and why?
because there are no taxes. Look at a third world country and this is what you see, no infrastructure because there are no taxes.
You get about 2 dollars an day because there are no laws preventing it, businesses can do anything they want. government only
exist with taxes. No taxes, no government and thus businesses and wealthy people can do anything they want.
If they want to collect poor people and then have a turkey shoot with those poor people, there is nothing anybody can
do about it. NO GOVERNMENT to stop them. Anarchism reigns supreme. Welcome to the future, one made possible because
there are no taxes.

Kropotkin

There is no way Imp would argue against these points of yours Kropotkin because he would lose and he knows it.

Besides, most participants and even the staff of this philosophy forum are cowards when it comes to arguing.

They don’t want to argue because they’re too afraid of getting beaten ~ good challenge though. =D>

Yeah! You should really get someone to debate you

The original Peter Kropotkin would be delighted to hear that.

You make a strong argument for LIMITED government and taxes. How do you feel about less necessary spending, like our federal government’s philanthropic nature with foreign nations. i.e. sending $15 billion, then an additional $50 billion dollars to Africa to fight aids, $1.6 TRILLION to Israel (1/4 of our national debt before Bush/Obama), 1.5 trillion to Palestine (this plus Israel has just cut the national debt in half before Bush/Obama!). Then there’s the mother-load, we spend a Trillion dollars every year to support our bases around the world so that we can police the world; Why do we have the UN (5 billion a year)? Regarding the UN, some people argue they are useless, yet the US seems to be good at going “Cowboy” and jumping in before the UN can react; lucky for us we stopped Saddam from firing his ?Nuclear Weapons??? right. War on drugs, yeah, another Trillion dollars.

I cannot argue against taxes themselves in respect to limited spending-- but the inept federal government’s spending has enslaved us and our unborn children to a debt which could take generations to pay, if ever. This is not so much an argument against taxes as it is against nearly unlimited power of our government to tax and spend. This debt yoke grows daily, and this yoke is very bad. Enjoy your slavery.

Your opinion here is very subjective, that of a materialist. For an individual to choose to live with nearly nothing beside a simple shelter and sustenance, taxes (property taxes specifically, which pay for the services associated with your argument ) are very bad. It is not possible for a person to live free if they want to live in a shelter and sustain themselves off the land, because they must pay taxes, or be put in prison---- to me this is inhumane and a form of wage slavery enforced by the corporate lobbyists and aristocrats. Your earlier services are not even worth a week of wages if your simple shelter can be built in less than a week and there is nothing worth protecting from theft. If your simple shelter burns down, build another; if a thief must steal something, more sustenance can be gathered in the morning; if an invading army wants to settle on the land, move on to another location; A public education simply provides you with the skills to be a wage slave, for what, material you don’t need and will be taxed on? Property tax specifically enslaves all humans to their government (run by Aristocrats and Corporate Lobbyists) if they would like to live in a shelter where they will not become ill due to exposure. It is not legal to set up a shelter anywhere in the US without being fined, which if you’re not slaving away for an undesired wage, you will not be able to pay and be sent to prison. Property tax is only good for materialists, Government officials, and Corporations. Since most people desire to live in a shelter, most people are slaves to their property tax. Property Tax specifically enslaves you to earn a wage----to earn a wage you must conform to society------- When the latter is completed you will no longer be yourself but a slave, working to conform and earn a wage for stuff you don’t need. Why do you need a big house, a flashy car—or even a car itself??? Did the public education system instill those values on us that we should labor for excessive material goods? Something that cannot be argued is that one day we will all die----So why waste our finite time to live slaving for stuff we don’t need and must labor to protect (through taxes which are handled by governments that tend to be corrupt)—we can’t take it with us in death. The only entities benefiting from property taxes are corporations, Government officials, materialists, and nationalists who seem to find pride in their wage slavery. Property tax prevents freedom and individualism, and enslaves individuals to conform to the behavior dictated by the Aristocracy.

I would argue against taxes and for philanthropy to replace taxes.

I will take you on, but only on the grounds of a technicality. :mrgreen:

A little is good thus a lot is better?

Is food good for Americans? Well of course. Or then again, maybe not. While having too little, food is not only good, but essential. But at a certain point more food becomes corruptive and bad. It is not a black or white issue.

The issue of taxes being good is not a black or white issue, but an issue of how much.

In addition, as TBLady pointed out, there are alternatives that can possibly accomplish the same amount of good or even more. So again, it is not a black or white issue, but one of relative situation concerning other things that might be going on or can be going on by design. The issue of taxes and how much cannot be addressed at all without considering what else is available and at what point more taxes would no longer be good.

But now to the technicality;

The debate title and supporting OP refers to an absolute good status for taxes. But clearly taxes are not an absolute good concern, thus the title and OP are incorrect. :sunglasses:

All taxes do is take resources from its producers, and distribute them elsewhere in the economy, based on political considerations.
Taxes don’t create wealth - they destroy wealth.
Thus anything society can afford with taxes, it could afford to do without them. And more. Much more. Because taxes do not just move wealth around - they positively destroy wealth. They destroy wealth because of the cost of collection, because of the inherent waste you find when people spend other people’s money, rather than their own. Most importantly, taxes destroy wealth because they discourage production.

Anything the government does with taxes - build roads, provide education, health, etc., could be provided much more efficiently by the private market.

I’ll remind everybody of the parable of the broken window (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of … ken_window). The upshot is that we shouldn’t focus only on that which is seen (government roads), but also on the unseen (everything that could have been done with the money that went into those roads).

The world without taxes described by Peter Kropotkin is absurd. It assumes that people don’t need, or couldn’t afford to pay for the goods and services provided by taxes. However, without taxes, we would all be much richer, and could easily afford to pay for education, private roads, private parks, clean water and air, Internet (not paid by taxes anyway), “public transportation”, police and fire protection.

Imagine living in the Soviet Union, where the government provided everybody with food. Suddenly you see this crazy American talking about private supermarkets. You laugh and say “without government, we wouldn’t have anything to eat!”

If people didn’t have to pay taxes, they would use the money they earned to buy what they actually need and want, rather than have politicians make their decisions for them.

Let me try to describe my world without taxes.

The day begins in the house normal enough. My Internet service is great. I chose to pay up a little to get the commercial-free version, though when I was a student I saved money by watching a few commercials. I drive to work using my neighbourhood road (paid for by my homeowner association fees), switching to my favorite motorway. An annual unlimited subscription is very affordable, especially since gasoline is so much cheaper without taxes. The road is very well maintained - after all, General Roads prides itself on providing smooth and safe rides.

I could, of course, use the private bus company service, but I don’t feel like waiting. On my way to the motorway I wave at a Cops Inc. patrolman. There is very little crime, but it still feels good to know that if anything happened to me, my annual Crime Insurance policy would cover any damages. I chose to buy the comprehensive package which includes fire insurance. Homeowner association rules stipulate that if my house burned and I am not covered, the neighbourhood policy would kick in, but I would be stuck with a very expensive bill.

My children go to the local Kipps Academy, one of the first, and still most successful private school chains. Sometimes I laugh at how much lower my school bill is, relative to what I used to pay in taxes. After all, Kipps have to compete with two other private schools in our neighbourhood.

My children usually play in the private neighbourhood park, but on weekends we like to drive to one of several private parks in the area. Some parks specialise in creating “home-away-from-home” convenience, while others pride themselves in their undisturbed wilderness.

The homeowner association has jointly purchased terrorism insurance from Black Arrow Security. Black Arrow is one of the best international security firms, buying the best intelligence from the now-private CIA, and contracting with several rapid-response forces. Of course, without the American government meddling all over the world, the threat of terrorism is virtually unheard of.

The air I breath is nice and clean. A few years ago, a class-action suit against General Roads resulted in a settlement whereby the company agreed to keep air pollution below an agreed level. They do that by charging extra from polluting cars. Perhaps next year I’ll switch to an electric car and save 15% off my annual subscription…

I feel very comfortable buying food in the supermarket. It goes without saying that every packet carries 2-3 logos of various inspection companies. After all, who in their right mind would buy a packet of food that wasn’t certified?

I could go on to describe the local health clinic (conveniently located inside the supermarket), where a certified nurse (certified by the private National Nursing Organisation) takes care of many procedures and diagnosis previously having required an MD. Of course, for more serious problem I visit an MD, certified by the now-private AMA. For sentimental reasons I like them better than their competition, National Doctors Network (NDN), though both are very good.

I could go on and on. Private solutions are always better because competition encourages innovation and striving to meet consumer demands. How different from the days of the monopolistic government which had very little incentive to try and improve its services - they got their money from taxes, not by creating satisfied customers!

NO GOVERNMENT. Anarchism reigns supreme. Welcome to the future, one made possible because there are no taxes. Thank God!

ehem

America is a continent sir.

And all who reside in it are Americans.

Perhaps you mean the United States?