keller@uicsl.UUCP (02/22/84)
#R:ihuxl:-91500:uicsl:16300046:000:554 uicsl!keller Feb 21 19:23:00 1984 Dear PVP, If you don't think that we are being forced to pay taxes, then you must believe that a person's wages (fruits of labor) are not the property of that person, but are completely controlled by the state. The USA has a free market economy in which taxes are collected forcibly. If you don't think that people should be free to own property without being taxed for it, then you deny a basic component of freedom. I thank God that you weren't around to help write the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. -Shaun
nrh@inmet.UUCP (02/24/84)
#R:ihuxl:-91500:inmet:7800061:000:7370
inmet!nrh Feb 23 18:00:00 1984
***** inmet:net.politics / ihuxl!pvp / 8:06 pm Feb 17, 1984
Inmet!nrh appears to be trying to make three points. In the
interest of space, I'll summarize them.
1) S/he claims that people given food by us to live on
will become dependant upon our largesse. S/he claims that
this can be shown by studying history, and talks about
"welfare millionares".
Answer: In recent history, we provided Europe massive amounts
of economic aid, through the Marshall Plan. Are they dependant
on us now? Please name a few countries that you think are
filled with lazy citizens depending on their neighbors for
handouts, and are perfectly content to continue doing so.
The Marshall plan lasted 5 years (1947-1952) although it has successors
such as the Truman Dcotrine. According to the Boston Public Library,
the Marshall plan was meant to re-construct Europe. When industrial
output rose to above pre-war levels the aid was stopped.
Total cost of the plan, according to the Information Please Almanac 1983.
was $11 billion. Total cost of foreign assistance (page 79 of the
almanac) for the entire postwar period is $213 billion. Foreign
aid is far from over: in 1980, "net assistance" was $10 billion.
About 10% of that was military.
If you figure that prices tripled (from consumer price indexes
for "all items") between 1955 to 1980 you get $9billion/3 = $3 billion
in 1955 dollars of non-military foreign aid in ONE YEAR (1980) vs
$11 billion / 5 years = $2 billion in foreign aid per year under
the Marshall plan. Get it? We're spending MORE now in foreign aid
than we did under the Marshall Plan in '47-'52.
I do not propose calling ANYONE "lazy". Why
should they exert themselves, though, when US taxpayers can somehow
be convinced to do it for them? If you object that we're only feeding
the hungry, forget it!
Governments have not the power to do such a thing.
The money's going somewhere. I don't argue that people are "perfectly
content" to continue to receive aid, merely that they'd prefer
to do so. Certainly this country has no policy of FORCING foreign
aid (at least non-military foreign aid) on other governments.
Personally, I think PRIVATE aid to such
countries is a wonderful idea: Private charities do not have the
wherewithal to waste on boondoggles -- and people receiving such aid
know it, and so do not grow dependent. Again: aid to such places is
FINE by me if I don't HAVE to contribute. Not that I wouldn't contribute,
but I'd like to be able to judge for myself what's a valid charity and
what isn't.
2) S/he claims that if we give food to these countries, corrupt
officials will skim some of it.
Answer: So what? Just consider it a cost of distribution.
Should we let people starve to death just because someone
less needy might get some of the food too? This is, though,
part of the reason why I would rather distribute food to needy
nations instead of low interest loans to buy food. Corrupt
officials can steal the money more easily than they can steal food.
I was not claiming that this disqualifies aid to such countries. The
point I made was that your assumption seemed to be that we could feed the
hungry with our surplus, but you were NEGLECTING the cost of paying off
corrupt officials. Corrupt officials have no problem stealing food --
they can sell it on the black market.
3) S/he states that I shouldn't even suggest that we give this
food to other nations, since the money to buy it was "stolen" from
the taxpayers by force by a government that had no right
to do so.
Answer: You are not being forced to pay taxes to the U.S. government.
You can leave any time you want. I don't know of anyone who
would even dream of keeping you here.
I don't care to change my place of residence, leave my
family and job, because of something YOU
(and N others) decide about the way "we" should act.
Are you really saying: "Love it or Leave it?"
Oh brother!
If you want to stay in this
country, and obtain the benefits of citizenship here, you are
tacitly agreeing to take part in this democracy.
NOT democracy. Republic.
Part of that
agreement is that the government will spend some of your earnings
to provide for the common welfare.
WHOSE common welfare. Yours and mine? The Emerging African Nations?
Chilean Boat People? Nope! The constitution doesn't have a lot to say
about the welfare of the rest of the world, and come to think of it,
nothing at all about foreign aid, however well-intentioned.
What we spend it on is decided
by our government representatives. All your talk about the
government "stealing" money is sheer demagoguery.
Well, given that this country was born out of a
rebellion against opressive taxation and government, I think it hardly
out of place to rail against oppressive taxation and government.
That government has seized power
that doesn't belong to it doesn't mean I have to leave, particularly
if I would prefer to set things right.
If you want
to stay in the house, you have to pay your share of the rent.
The rent, yes, but I needn't chip in to every scheme that any of my housemates
want, right? I needn't pay part of their contributions to charity, do I?
How about for their clothes? What if they're starving? I might chip
in for these things, but I would resent my housemates going to the landlord
and making money for these items "part of the rent". That's what you're
doing when you mandate Government charity. If, on the other hand,
the LANDLORD wants to raise the rent, that's different. Are you claiming
the government OWNS the United States? Oho!
Everyone of us has the right to talk about what we should spend
that money on, and to try to convince other citizens and government
representatives to think the same way.
Absolutely. We've also got the right to say that since this is not "rent",
but money collected for "common purposes", that the money actually BEING
collected is too great, and that the mechanism has become a method of
theft or fraud.
Personally, I think that
using our surplus food to feed starving people elsewhere in the
world would be a good investment. We would probably be able to save
a lot of money in the future. We wouldn't have to provide
so much military aid to prop up those corrupt officials that
bother you so much.
They bug me partly because they're symptoms of government oppression.
Personally, I don't think we have to provide ANY money to ANY other
government (except to redeem currency). Understand: I think that
you should be free to spend YOUR money as you choose, but not to
spend MY money as you choose, no matter how many congresscritters
back your play. The idea that was new about the US was the notion
of a LIMITED government. It took us 200 years of erosion of that
notion to go from:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States,
respectively, or to the people. -- Article X, US constitution.
to a court decision prohibiting a farmer to grow corn on his land to feed his
own hogs because it was "conspiracy in restraint of trade".
As the slogan goes: "Not with my life, you don't".
Nat ("XY Chromosomes") Howard