Taxes!

[Osteomata]

Marlin,
In some cases I have questioned your facts, usually suggesting that you have cherry picked or exaggerated, but even that is not my primary objection. My repeated position is that you draw overbroad and distortive conclusions from limited data, and claim causes to behavior or national trends that are not necessarily correlated, much less proven. Without going back to the first page of posts, (where you may recall we were actually talking about tax rates and burden and I provided quite a number of links), just picking one minor example from recent comments: the "psychology is a BA not a BS" statement, turns out to be at best a half truth, given that it is a BS some places, BA others, and in some colleges they offer both options. I cop to being a civil libertarian, and caught between a respect for free market power and an belief in occasional market failure, as well as a concern about societal stability if we do not have a social safety net. If that is rampant bleeding heart progressive, then either you are dramatically shoving my stated positions to the left inside your head, or you do not actually know what a bleeding heart progressive leftist wants in the way of policy and legislation.

If the below poem sums up your beliefs rather than being merely a cutesy caricature of them, then I think we can pretty much home in on my problem with your perspective:

This email was going around...pretty much sums it up for me:

Put me in charge . . ..

Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for
Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans,
blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want
steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.

Time is money. You want all these free loaders to have a job, but you want to forcibly limit their ability to prepare meals quick by giving them some sort of conscript allowance of food. You have effectively mandated a much larger dedication of resources that works against employment. This is the least of it though...

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women
Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test
recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and
piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get
tats and piercings, then get a job.

Because government controlled and mandated sterilization is such a democratic ideal. And here I previously spoofed your views with what I thought at the time was an over the top suggestion that we should be testing them for nicotine and alcohol use as well. Turns out very little is beyond your dream of government control, so long as its applied to others. God forbid anyone should have a beer or a smoke. And yoru Cultural Purity police will no soubt have a nice set of approved piercing locations, and conduct adequate inspections that will not at all be intrusive and demeaning. Hey, maybe we can have the TSA do it? Cause travel is voluntary too! So why limit their porno scanners to those that can afford a plane ticket, lets get to strip searching the poor and photgraphing their low class tats! Oh yes of course the poem ends with a CYA "I'm not a complete tool because its all voluntary" sentence. Right. Freaking medical care when your child is sick, when you have an abscess, or food poisoning, cause having those things happen is all voluntary too. Your distrust of government evaporates when presented the opportunity to apply extreme authoritarian measures against the poor. How libertarian. Such concepts are exactly why libertarians have a bad name in some circles, the "I got mine" view of the world.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks?
You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your
"home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be
inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your
own place.

Ditto my last. Maybe you can come up with a cool name and set of uniforms for this inspection enforcement crew. Once again, where is your distrust of government? Did you not argue against fascist thugs or something when it came to CPS?

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or
you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of
trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We
will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo
and speakers and put that money toward the common good.

Pure cultural chauvinism tinged with race baiting. Let The State determine which legal products you may own, second class citizen! I have a series of detailed and convoluted regulations concerning all products, made after a multi-million dollar study of "things poor people waste money on." Your tires are 1/4 to narrow, and the shine on those rims exceed 25 lux, Officer, confiscate these so he has to buy new tires! That is how we teach the poor good choices!

Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of
the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules.. Before
you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem,"
consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for
doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

CYA catchall justification for a style of government that i would hope most will find not merely uncomfortable, but reprehensible.

AND While you are on Government subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will
voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Government
welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.
Now, if you have the guts - PASS IT ON...

Oh yes! Disenfranchisement! Maybe a poll tax and literacy tests formulated by a select committee in each neighborhood too? It all sounds so vaguely familiar. Maybe we will need a sort of community based organization to help enforce it. Might have to wear disguises though. But the policy is brilliant, because this way we make sure that the landed gentry can control all future laws as well!

You have jumped the shark.