Forced solidarity

[Radier]

Can anyone answer me why I shall be forced to pay for others. Persons in wheelchair, sick persons, unemployed persons you name it. Why? Isn't it more fair that those who want to pay for these pay? By forcing people to do things is slavary in my eyes...

(Note that I want to pay for these, but just wondered why I shall be forced too).

[InsaneApache]

Step up Jag

I'll assume that you are serious.

Any civilized society has a duty, nay a need, to take care of unfortunates in their midst. It is after all human nature. It seperates us from the beasts.

Put it this way, I don't know you, how old you are, what gender you are or where you live. However if, say, you were walking down a road and were hit by a car and was seriously injured, taken to hospital and patched up then who was it that paid for the treatment?

Complications set in. You have both arms and legs amputated. Who pays the surgeon? Who carries you to and from your home? Who pays them?

It is in all societies interest to look after such things. After all next time it might well be you.

[Radier]

Step up Jag

I'll assume that you are serious.

Any civilized society has a duty, nay a need, to take care of unfortunates in their midst. It is after all human nature. It seperates us from the beasts.

Put it this way, I don't know you, how old you are, what gender you are or where you live. However if, say, you were walking down a road and were hit by a car and was seriously injured, taken to hospital and patched up then who was it that paid for the treatment?

Complications set in. You have both arms and legs amputated. Who pays the surgeon? Who carries you to and from your home? Who pays them?

It is in all societies interest to look after such things. After all next time it might well be you.

But I still don't understand why people shall be forced to pay. It means nothing else that we all think that every person is evil, and because of that we must force him/her to pay for others. Slavery...

If help was voluntary, do you think no one had payed for those who need treatment? No one believes in humanity any more...

No I like how the Celtic society worked. Solidarity was encouraged but not law.

[Kagemusha]

But I still don't understand why people shall be forced to pay. It means nothing else that we all think that every person is evil, and because of that we must force him/her to pay for others. Slavery...

If help was voluntary, do you think no one had payed for those who need treatment? No one believes in humanity any more...

No I like how the Celtic society worked. Solidarity was encouraged but not law.

Radier do you think the Celts didnt pay taxes to their Kings? We pay becouse a long time a go in the African Savannah apemen were living in a pacs.We live in a society,becouse together we are stronger.

[English assassin]

But I still don't understand why people shall be forced to pay. It means nothing else that we all think that every person is evil, and because of that we must force him/her to pay for others. Slavery...

If help was voluntary, do you think no one had payed for those who need treatment?

Well, yes, I do think that. If payment was voluntary them some people would indeed choose not to pay (just as (fewer) people choose not to pay for things even when payment is compulsory). Hard hearted people would then free ride on kind people, why would that be any fairer?

Also, I don't see why this is slavery. After all, sweden is a democracy, if you don't like it you can vote against it. If enough swedes agree with you you can have it your way.

[Radier]

Radier do you think the Celts didnt pay taxes to their Kings? We pay becouse a long time a go in the African Savannah apemen were living in a pacs.We live in a society,becouse together we are stronger.

I am not talking about taxes in general, just the money we pay for others to help them. And I don't care wether it is better or worse for the society, it is the forcing I really can't understand.

I know that together we are stronger, but what if I refuse to pay for a sick girl. Shall I then be put into prison? H**l no, it's my money and I shall decide if that shall help others or not.

Ok listen to this: Now the majority forces the minority to pay wether they want to or not. Does that mean me and some friends can just rob a guy, because we are the majority?

Us:"Hey Steve give us your money now, or else... We shall do good thing for them."
Steve: "But it's my money!"
Us: "So?"

Is that how you want it to work?

Well, yes, I do think that. If payment was voluntary them some people would indeed choose not to pay (just as (fewer) people choose not to pay for things even when payment is compulsory). Hard hearted people would then free ride on kind people, why would that be any fairer?

Also, I don't see why this is slavery. After all, sweden is a democracy, if you don't like it you can vote against it. If enough swedes agree with you you can have it your way.

Well I am only 17, so I can't vote.

Your fist sentence saiys it all! You do believe that a majority won't pay for others, why in gods name shall we force them? Isn't forcing no one more fair than forcing a minority? Just because a majority in the southern states in US was pro-slavery doesn't make it right.
If we, the swedes, vote for extermination of yews, is that right?

In a liberal society everyone is free and are not slaves under the government. No one is stopping people from getting together and work as communists or socialists. Everyone is free to do whatever they want with their money. That is the most fair alternative...

[Kagemusha]

I am not talking about taxes in general, just the money we pay for others to help them. And I don't care wether it is better or worse for the society, it is the forcing I really can't understand.

I know that together we are stronger, but what if I refuse to pay for a sick girl. Shall I then be put into prison? H**l no, it's my money and I shall decide if that shall help others or not.

Ok listen to this: Now the majority forces the minority to pay wether they want to or not. Does that mean me and some friends can just rob a guy, because we are the majority?

Us:"Hey Steve give us your money now, or else... We shall do good thing for them."
Steve: "But it's my money!"
Us: "So?"

Is that how you want it to work?

Well my friend,thats called democracy.The majority decides and the minority cant do a shit about it. There are laws there to protect minorities and international agreements that allow other nations to step in and beat the living hell out of the Swedes if they for example decide to kill all the minorities in Sweden. If you think that the Swedish model with high taxes and good services is not one you like i suggest you move into some other country which have lower taxes.

[Radier]

Well my friend,thats called democracy.The majority decides and the minority cant do a shit about it. There are laws there to protect minorities and international agreements that allow other nations to step in and beat the living hell out of the Swedes if they for example decide to kill all the minorities in Sweden. If you think that the Swedish model with high taxes and good services is not one you like i suggest you move into some other country which have lower taxes.

Well if I don't want to move then?

I guess I will have to live as a slave my whole life... But still, a slave that had performed it's duties as a free man. In the reality it doesn't make that much difference, but morally it's wrong.

[Geoffrey S]

Your fist sentence saiys it all! You do believe that a majority won't pay for others, why in gods name shall we force them?

Other way around, methinks.

[Radier]

Other way around, methinks.

Oh sorry. Minority is the word, not majority.

[Kagemusha]

Well if I don't want to move then?

I guess I will have to live as a slave my whole life... But still, a slave that had performed it's duties as a free man. In the reality it doesn't make that much difference, but morally it's wrong.

I agree. Freedom is pretty much illusion. But hey we still have have the booze and ladies! If you want to have atleast a limited freedom.Start your own business, so then there is atleast not an employer on your back.But the government will rob us anyway. Death and taxes,the two certain things in this world.

[Ironside]

It's about fairness. If you have implemented helping of others through taxes, then if all pay, all deserves to gain from it. Otherwise, why would those who doesn't want to pay taxes benefit from it?

Notice, fairness doesn't neccissery mean equality.

[Radier]

It's about fairness. If you have implemented helping of others through taxes, then if all pay, all deserves to gain from it. Otherwise, why would those who doesn't want to pay taxes benefit from it?

Notice, fairness doesn't neccissery mean equality.

If I don't pay for others and I get hurt in a caraccident it is up to the payers to descide wether I shall get treatment or not. Easy... But I can't force anyone to pay for me, that's just absurd.

I short question to all who read this: If it was voluntary to pay for peoples medical treatment, would you have payed? or would you turn your back to the people who are suffering?

[Ser Clegane]

I short question to all who read this: If it was voluntary to pay for peoples medical treatment, would you have payed? or would you turn your back to the people who are suffering?

Isn't this voluntary help a bit unrealistic in a larger society? How is that supposed to work out in reality? How do you create the awareness that somebody is in need? Are people who need help supposed to go begging on the streets? Will in the end those get help who manage to get most publicity?

In a larger society we institutionalize the support of those in need by collecting taxes and (at least trying) to distribute money fairly among those in need.
According to your logic we shouldn't need any taxes. Why should I be forced to pay for a military or for building streets? Shouldn't I voluntarily give what I see suitable for those purposes?
Might work in a small tribal community, but certainly not in a large society.

[Radier]

Isn't this voluntary help a bit unrealistic in a larger society? How is that supposed to work out in reality? How do you create the awareness that somebody is in need? Are people who need help supposed to go begging on the streets? Will in the end those get help who manage to get most publicity?

In a larger society we institutionalize the support of those in need by collecting taxes and (at least trying) to distribute money fairly among those in need.
According to your logic we shouldn't need any taxes. Why should I be forced to pay for a military or for building streets? Shouldn't I voluntarily give what I see suitable for those purposes?
Might work in a small tribal community, but certainly not in a large society.

If you own a car you shall be forced to pay for the streets to drive on them. And I think the military must be financed by everyone, since if you don't pay for it, you will get defended in a case of war anyway.

How it shall work in reality? Well, insurances. And those who do not have the money for any insurance must put their hopes in charity companies.

[InsaneApache]

Death and taxes,the two certain things in this world

Probably the truest statement in the backroom so far this year.

[Ironside]

And I think the military must be financed by everyone, since if you don't pay for it, you will get defended in a case of war anyway.

But by some reason you consider it slavery and unfair, when the hospitals do the same.

[Byzantine Prince]

It has to do with laws that have been passed on humanitarian grounds. These laws have been brought forth largely by public opinion to the politicians who have decided on them. You could make the same argument for sexual harrassment laws, lol. "Why can't I touch a woman's b00b if I want to, that slavery!" And you would be right too, it is slavery or sorts.

So in other words if you don't like it, too bad, it is there and you can't touch random women's b00bs.

[master of the puppets]

tsk tsk, how selfish you are.

i believe that taxes for hospitals is completely justified, as with the military, and unfortunates who are crippled or hurt. but if this springs from something like how the government is paying wellfare to ghetto gang idiots who are to lazy or stoned to get a job then i agree with you, they don't deserve my money. same thing with prisons (where those already mentioned may end up) i see it as a little less taxes would be fine, its stupid that some murderur who has 60 to life can still get a nice big cell and a TV on my tax dollars. not saying they should be denied food or anything but do not give them comforts they do not deserve. let the worst of um suffer, thats what they are there for.

[Tribesman]

Can anyone answer me why I shall be forced to pay for others.
So you don't like paying taxes , then move somewhere where you don't pay any .

[Radier]

Ironside it is not a guarantee that I will get treatment if I haven't paid for the hospitals. In case of a war, many will take up arms and die for me, wether I want to or not, so you are right, it is a sort of slavery, but changing that is not fair anyway.

BP I can't see the connection between boobs and charity... Can you please explain more?

Master why do you answer me when you haven't read my posts? I said I was going to pay although I didn't have to. That's charity you know... Real solidarity. And anyone here who spend his days on the forums, living a good life, shall not ever call another selfish! But who knows, you might even have shared alot of your money with the starving in Africa? But in that I doubt...

Tribesman you haven't understood how I think. And you haven't read my earlier posts ether. You are using exactly the rethoric as my communistic friend: "If you don't like it, leave".

[Byzantine Prince]

BP I can't see the connection between boobs and charity... Can you please explain more?

I'll make it simpler. If a lot of people say that you should not touch b00bs without consent, this would eventually become law in your country in some way or another because the issues will be brought forth to politicians and they will eventually bend to the will of the people. The same goes with humanitarian laws, like helping crippled people who would otherwise die in a very inhumane way.

It's all b00bs.

[Samurai Waki]

God, haven't you ever heard of compassion? You do things that you don't want to do, but you do it anyway, because it's the right thing to do. Even if I was given the opportunity to not pay taxes towards those sorts of things, I'd probably choose to anyway, just because at least you have some sense that you are still a part of this world.

Take the Pakistan Earthquake Disaster Relief Charity, I didn't have to donate Red Cross 800 Dollars, but I did it anyway, just because I felt it was the right thing to do. With Taxes its the same story, unless your fine with being a hermit and living in a cave somewhere high in the mountains without heat or electricity, or protection from Law Enforcement.

[Crazed Rabbit]

You're right Radier. It is slavery. No matter how these people try to dress it up as 'compassion' or charity, or even try to relate it to a totally different situation, it is not. When you are forced to do something, it is not charity. Charity is when chooses of one's own will, with no pressure on them from laws or government, to give.

Whether people think its right or not to pay taxes for hospitals is of no consequence, because its the law to pay taxes, and the law that forces them to pay.

Crazed Rabbit

[Tribesman]

Tribesman you haven't understood how I think. And you haven't read my earlier posts ether. You are using exactly the rethoric as my communistic friend: "If you don't like it, leave".
I have read your posts , and they make little sense . Charities are no better than governments when it comes to finance .
By removing the governments obligations to provide through taxes and leaving it to the charitable donations you wil end up with a situation where the charities fail and the government has to step in anyway , just as the charities now step in where governments fail to provide .
By financing through taxation rather than by donation you are better able to regulate the supply of monies , plus almost everyone pays and everyone is entitled to the benefit , wheras by donation only some pay yet everyone is entitled to the benefit .

[Watchman]

Taxes are the "membership fee" you pay as a part of the community known as a nation-state. The duly empowered decision-makers, hopefully listening to what the people think about it and on sound and wholesome grounds (both often sadly lacking in most places...), then use the big pile of resources said membership fees add up to to do various things, hopefully to further the interests and well-being of the community.

How much and in what form you pay these dues, and what they're used for and how, has varied immensely in the course of human history. But in one sense or another *everyone* has always somehow "paid" for his continued membership in his community (yes, even the freeloaders - they get to act as the scapegoats for any spare resentement floating around...).

Dunno about you, but I personally rather prefer the system where the governement just collects all the tax money into a huge, impersonal lump and then spends it on assorted running costs and services to for example being required to work the fields of my feudal lord three days a week and having to act as arrow-fodder the next time he has a turf war with his cousin next door (granted, the state would still ask me to pick up a rifle and die in the bushes if it came to blows with one of its peers, but that's thankfully a very rare occasion these days). With lots of truly squalid beggars starving underfoot, mind you.

Methinks it's best the state keeps the destitute reasonably fed, clotched and housed on tax money rather than leaving the matter to charity groups (I've yet to hear of a welfare-oriented governement that had something against charity organisations, philantropists and suchlike helping out though; for some reason many right-wingers seem not to grasp this). Donations are nice, but they're a wee bit unreliable and all too often earmarked specifically for one purpose or another - which very well might not be the one that needs resources the most at the moment, but the one the donator is aware and/or concerned about. More to the point, as the occasional reference to prisons in the discussion thus far shows, many people have a fair bit of issues they'd rather prefer (for whatever reason) to *not* give funding to - yet the governement needs to cover the running costs of the prisons anyway and keep the inmates from starving and eating each other.

Issues and functions that are for one reason or another unpopular (or just unknown to the general public) simply cannot rely on voluntary donations to keep running. And look at how well the US model of sub-contracting prison management to the private sphere is working out, as far as alternatives go... I sincerely don't believe the situation has gotten any better in the about dozen years since I wrote a fire-and-brimstone school essay on the topic as an angry and thoroughly clueless (if well-read) teenager.

Plus leaving it up to donations gives you the issue, already mentioned by others, of Publicity=Funding. There's something *very* wrong in my opinion in the very idea of various disadvantaged and problem-ridden interest groups having to try their damnedest to lobby for attention merely in order to get any real money to work on - and how are the really sorry cases who seriously need help supposed to be capable of anything of the sort to begin with ? I can very well indeed imagine how badly *that* system would start to go wrong almost from the word go; corrupt fat-cat trade union chiefs would start looking like little boy scout angles, I'll tell you that much.

Anyway, national governements are also the entities with the most sheer data about the societies they manage; they're info junkies to a degree to make the most paranoid control-freak secret police look like a mild case of caffeine addiction. If there's someone who knows exactly how many beggars, prisoners, handicapped etc. etc. somehow troubled and attention-needing cases there are in the society, it's them. They're also bureaucracies concerned with the smooth running of the society; if they're told by the appropriate authorities to do something about X so the system doesn't start glitching, they *will* proceed to do something about X so the system doesn't start glitching and not waste time on short-sighted populism and general small-mindedness along the lines of "I think it's okay to let native unemployed live on the meager welfare if need be, but them damn immigrants ain't getting my money".

You could say that whatever the scummy, highly unpopular but nonetheless necessary thing that needs doing, it's ultimately the gray bureaucrats of the impersonal adminstration who organize someone to get paid to do it with someone's money. I rather prefer them organizing someone to take care of it for everyone with the tax moneys gathered from everyone to them leaving it up to folks paying it from their own pockets, which in practice results in rich neighborhoods being squeaky clean and the poor ones drowning in shit if you see what I mean. And everyone *still* pays anyway...

Bureaucracies are by definition supposed to be coldly and unemotionally rational and without much human bias. That, in my opinion, makes them a rather better choice for looking after how money is spent on assorted usually rather unpopular problem groups than individual citizens or collections thereof. The latter have a very unhappy tendency (more like a certainty) to hold various unwholesome biases against various problem groups which in turn translates to them at best neglecting said groups; and if said groups are particularly unpopular odds are they'll be left desperately short of any and all concrete support, and on the whole that is Not A Good Thing.

Know why the famous Iron Chancellor of Prussia, not exactly the most liberal or progressive of men, introduced measures very much in line with welfare policies ? He wanted to prevent excessive disenfrachement, radicalization and militancy of the unwashed masses at the bottom of the social heap. Most European countries ended up carrying out similar schemes sooner or later. The ones who didn't, or tried and failed ? They were the ones with bomb-throwing anarchists and wacky ultra-leftist wannabe Messiahs crawling out of the woodwork...

"Slavery" or not, I think a decent tax-funded social welfare system is a pretty good insurance against excessive social unrest (among other things). Sure beats paying premium for private security services and *still* having to be afraid. Since I'm going to pay someone anway in the end, I might as well go for the better value for my money - and as a bonus if I seriously f*ck up and my life goes down the drain, there's something cushioning the cold hard flagstones of the gutter. Perhaps even enough to let me rebound back up, and I've nothing against my tax moneys softening someone else's final spiral or letting him get back on track either, when it comes down to it.

But then again I'm the sort who gives a coin to any bum regardless of how transparent and ludicrous his sob story might be (although I actually like the sort that just asks money and doesn't waste my time with BS), simply because I figure anyone who has to go asking people for money on the street sure as Hell needs that coin more than I do...

[Watchman]

As a matter of fact, I do indeed ramble. Redunantly, too.

[bmolsson]

Taxes are nothing but legalized theft. It's protection money for not be oppressed and thrown in jail. Anyone saying something differnt have no clue of what they are talking about.
With the above said, it's a practical solution for a larger society where parts of infrastructure has to be done together in order to happen.
It should be in everyone's interest to minimize this forced taxation and as long as possible have all services financed with earmarked fees.

Example: Roads are to be paid by everyone that uses them. This is done by tax and registration of vehicles. If you don't want to pay it, don't use the roads. If you use them anyway, you get punished.

The ideological difference here are most of the times about the practical ability to do as I say and if the individual is competent to make these decisions himself. I believe we are as individuals, while a communist or socialist believe we need help with these decisions.

[Watchman]

Then again, I'd far rather pay my protection moneys to the tax man than to the mob boss - at least the former won't nail my cat to the door and bust my kneecaps if I'm late.

[bmolsson]

Then again, I'd far rather pay my protection moneys to the tax man than to the mob boss - at least the former won't nail my cat to the door and bust my kneecaps if I'm late.

Wait until you had your first tax audit.....