I never accused you or your family of lacking compassion. Nor was I aware, however, that you considered taxation theft.

As it stands now, the government welfare-warfare state is premised on both welfare and war, while the military-industrial complex gets rich off so-called defense spending and programs are needed to help people who are unemployed based on the intentional unemployment that is built into the system.

The scare and fear tactics that businesses rely upon to keep workers worried about their next paycheck, to keep them cowed and obedient and compliant. This situation would not have to exist if our governing structures were transformed to accommodate independent livelihoods and the concept that small is beautiful or less is more, as Gatto says, not that bigger is always better or that the unbridled consumerism is something good, based on endless growth.

Your question is reasonable, but I do not choose to reveal the proportion of my discretionary income that I give to charitable organizations on a public forum. Some years my donations are much larger than others, since my income varies from year to year. But in any case, this is a private matter that I see no reason to make public.

Also, I don't doubt that you are generous in your charitable giving and made no accusation about your family.



And what about taxes that go to fund wars? You do not object to paying those? The drone attacks on innocent civilians in other countries, the slaughter of over 1 million Iraqis and the displacement of several million Iraqis who have had to flee their homes and become refugees?

I don't understand your reasoning here, except that, like Ron, you must fear aggression from people you believe want to force others to live under a caliphate. This makes little sense to me and I do not see it aligned with compassion. Saddam was captured and put to death. What will become of what is left of this war-torn nation now and all the civilians who live there?

Louise,

Throughout the years, time and again, we've endured insinuations from you that because we oppose taxation we want to throw widows out into the streets to beg for a living, we want to deprive children of their milk and cookies, and many of the other false accusations that liberals like to hurl at conservatives.

So, I merely wanted to know if you put your money where your mouth is, or if, like most liberals, you merely talk a good talk, but insist on others involuntarily ponying up the dough for your causes.

That's all.

Dave

Apparently you oppose taxation for some purposes but not others.

You asked me a personal question about my personal contributions to charities, yet I am not supposed to ask you any questions? Is that how it works?



Believe me, over the years I have contributed both time and money to causes, not expecting other people to pony up the dough for them. If you expect me to say which ones and have such causes trashed here, along with nearly everything else I say, I am not about to do that.

Some of the causes I have supported with my own time and money are in opposition to the government coercion that I am continually accused of supporting here. So, Dave, please don't try to pull a "holier than thou" in the compassion department, based upon what you think "most liberals" do.

Louise,
I am not the only one that notices how you insist that you are conservative or centrist but continuously resort to very left positions.
Ron

Louise,

I'm happy to hear that you put your money where your mouth is ... even though I probably would not care for the causes that you support.

But, I believe I've made my point. You should stop haranguing others for opposing taxation with the accusation that we are uncompassionate because we are conservatives.

Dave

Dave,

Are you against all taxation as theft or do you only consider tax dollars allotted for social programs as theft?

And btw, I think you would care for some of the causes I support. Contrary to the consensus views of some people here, I am not afraid to support liberty in cases where the government denies it. I believe that exercising the rights of citizenship demands it.

This does not mean, however, that I am a libertarian. The libertarian position is so filled with contradictions that I find it nearly incoherent.

I am sorry you think that I have harangued people as lacking compassion BECAUSE they are CONSERVATIVES. I realize that generosity and concern for our fellows is not based on political ideology.

Louise,
"Are you against all taxation as theft or do you only consider tax dollars allotted for social programs as theft?"
When you take money from one person at the point of a gun to give it to another because you feel that is a good thing to do without any authorization in our Constitution I do not consider it theft - it is armed robbery.
If done at all it should be left to the States.
Ron

I was thinking the exact same thing a few weeks ago, Dave.

>>>>>I have not said how everyone else should live. You, however, have said people should live in covenant communities, based, according to you, on the ability to exclude those unlike themselves.<<<<

Do you understand what you have written?

In your first sentence you claim that you have not said how everyone else should live and also misrepresent my statements (I have never said that everyone SHOULD live anyway in particular, only that people have the right to live as they please as long as they do not aggress against others and that this could include covenant communities, clans, etc.).
In the next sentence you imply that there is something wrong with people wanting to freely choose their own associations, to have the liberty to select or avoid other relationships. Your second sentence negates your first sentence. Your second sentence says that there is something WRONG with people excluding "those unlike themselves" from contracted communities....effectively sayiong that you ARE saying how everyone else should live, that they MUST associate with people they'd prefer not to associate with or there is something wrong with them.

What's it to you who lives among who??

It's with your claim that government force is illegitimate, but that private force - to enforce covenant community living - is OK.

I defend pluralism. You defend exclusion.

In the past you have spoken against public zoning laws. Yet here it turns out you want to zone the world into privatized enclaves with KEEP OUT signs. A privatized world based on force and coercion.

Yet you see no contradictions here, only blissful living of like-minded people.

No. You stated that you are not saying how people have to live but you ARE.

>>>It's with your claim that government force is illegitimate, but that private force - to enforce covenant community living - is OK.<<<<<

I am not saying it is OK to force any kind of covenant on anyone. I am saying that is an option some might choose, just as they do now.

>>>>>I defend pluralism. You defend exclusion.<<<<

I am defending the right of free association. If that means excluding someone, then that is a right an individual has. You have no right to insist that someone associate with you, live with you, trade with you. The government forces associations illegitnmately when it chooses to among SOME people. Actually, I am the one defending pluralism and YOU are the one insisting that "we" ALL have to live a certain way, believing the same things, behaving the same way. And that is NOT "pluralism" OR diversity.

>>>>>In the past you have spoken against public zoning laws. Yet here it turns out you want to zone the world into privatized enclaves with KEEP OUT signs.<<<<

Yes. Private property is just that. Private and no one elses business unless their property use interferes with someone elses property right use of THEIR own. Zoning laws generally affect OTHER peoples property. Some people get governments to pass laws prohibiting what OTHER people do with their property. This can be done in a market anarchy, of course, as long as everyone agrees to and contracts for it.

>>> A privatized world based on force and coercion.<<<

VOLUNTARILY agreed upon behaviors should not require very much force at all. If I agree to abide by rules in order to live in a certain community then I won't need to be forced to obey them.

>>>>Yet you see no contradictions here, only blissful living of like-minded people. <<<<

Where's the contradiction?