Living Within Parameters:
From A.T.--
Re: "A progressive, income-based tax system makes sense only in a state-controlled society."
No. I stand in praise of "extreme moderation," in defense only of that government that avails decent freedom of expression and enterprise to its citizenry. Such a government is not availed either by excessive control by statists or by excessive control by international corporatists. You may as well have said, "A flat tax system makes sense only in an international corporatist controlled society." Yes, you would then have free speech, meaning, if you wish to advance, free speech to sing the praises of the international corporatist elite. Both systems are for Progs. Both want to reduce the middle class. Both think they know best. And both seek to annihilate America's borders. One does it with open invasion. The other under a Trojan Horse of free trade. Both are showered with funding from those who seek to fit the middle class with concrete shoes.
You are fighting the future with the past. It was in the past that we had a semblance of free competition. Now, the competition is not to produce goods, but to control politicians, governments, and middle classes. Does A.T. mean to promote insight or simply to defend the undermining of the American middle class, only under the alternative flag of international corporatism?
I grant you, I don't want large taxes simply to fund intrusive government. However, I do want a republican system of government, not an international corporatist system of government. I don't want redistribution for the sake of false fairness. However, I do want some limitation on the capacity of people of distinctly anti-American mindsets, such as a certain Mr. Soros, who fancy themselves the saviors of humanity if only humanity will surrender its freedom. I don't see the point for facilitating fop progeny of Soros-like aristo-rats in imagining they know, and mean to enforce, what is best for the rest of us.
We can only live within parameters. Republicanism is not excluded from that hard rule. So we absolutely do need some means to redistribute, not for fairness, but to allow Republicanism to survive. For that, I would suggest: end the income tax; end corporate taxes; replace with flat sales/value added taxes; but also add a progressive consumption tax based on annual individual consumption. And include taxes on speech that is not free, i.e., speech charged for via advertising and subscriptions, as well as monies spent to acquire face time to influence politicians. Do not allow corporations to contribute to politicians. But do allow individuals, in unlimited amounts. However, tax such political investments via a progressive consumption tax. Dedicate proceeds to preserving the republic.
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2 comments:
Re: "Ultimately, shouldn't the issue boil down to each individual's determination to be the best or the worst one can be without those in government imposing the false choice of equal outcomes?"
You would rather that those in government be rigged hirelings for those who can make their interests "the best they can be" in terms of advantages plied from the government? Those who run government, whether they be politicians fronting as statesmen or the owners of the pols, will make allocations. If you don't want those allocations to bear a semblance of equality , then do you want those allocations to be unequal? If so, why should only the politicians receive the sell out money? Why not the people at large, on whose account the fronting pols are making allocations, spreading licenses, permits, franchises, and regulations? You think a big business (or anything big, for that matter) make its bones on the merit of its competition? I'm conservative, but I don't turn a blind eye. Government should be as little as possible into the allocation business. It should mainly avail a decent republic, period. That means a republic that is not a mere front for owners behind the curtain.
When you're the bacon being fought over by contending wolfpacks, don't think siding with one or the other will save you. The middle class needs to get its own representation, to stand for a decent republic. It can hardly acquire the backbone to do that without assimilating some decent values. Let's see -- Progs on all sides want "to progress us" beyond the kind of moral values that can sustain a decent middle class. Now I wonder why that is? Hmmm. One side want us to adopt faith in statism as our new religion; the other wants us to adopt faith in a false market, where there is little real competition except for government pull and buying politicians and governments. Once we slide from faith in anything higher, we slide fast and far.
Re-reading Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, I find myself moved beyond mere love of God towards near equal trepidation. I apprehend that we are not God. However, I also apprehend that -- as we lose proportion, moderation, self restraint, virtue, and empathy -- so also does God tend to feed much the same loss back upon us. As we become hollow, so also is a habit or cloak summoned upon us, much as if God loses interest in us. Our greatest inducement, as well as our greatest fear, should be in respect of our responsibility, based on the meta-power which is beyond our bodies, yet which is availed within our minds, to define things anew. Our civilization has come to a very immoderate point, at which moderation and restraint in seeking to satisfy material desires is much ridiculed. Indeed, moderates are hardly represented in our councils. Why? Diversity. Few believe their fellows hold much in common in respect of good will, good faith, and regard for a reconciling Creator. In an immoderate contest among the hyphenated, the moderates are run off the road – a road to perdition. Against ravening hedonists, who can stand ground as principled, extreme moderates? Who can show a way to a decent and sustainable civilization?
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