New at Reason

David Weigel | July 27, 2006

Pat Buchanan waves the white flag to end the Culture Wars. Nick Gillespie says: "Forward, march!"

Comments

|7.27.06 @ 2:51AM|#

A brilliant commentary. This is the sort of reasoning that makes libertarianism really compelling.

|7.27.06 @ 3:30AM|#

A little late to the debate on right v libertarian Nick v Jonah but the recording sucks. Aren't you people supposed to be tech savy? And as much as I hate Pat Buchanan, I'd prefer him as president to Bush or Kerry/Gore

KipEsquire|7.27.06 @ 7:02AM|#

"Why not let smaller jurisdictions decide what they want?"

It seems to me that Gillespie is the one who's surrendering -- Buchanan is just making a flanking maneuver.

There are only so many ways to say the same thing: It makes no difference whatsoever whether my rights are being trampled at the federal level or the state level. To say that, "well, I don't like it, but at least it's federalism" is an inexcusably un-libertarian position and an embrace of statism, just with a different flavor.

See generally, "Chicago City Council."

|7.27.06 @ 7:55AM|#

I'd move to Buchanan's Christianist utopia.

An originalist interpretation of the Constitution would actually allow this federalist state to exist. By its text, the bill of rights does not appyl to states. States ought to be free to establish religion, curtail speech rights, regulate firearms, search and seize without probable cause, and so on. I'm not saying a state should do those things, just that the Constitution does not prohibit it. The 14th amendment would still apply to states to limit truly egregious state action, such as forced confessions or only allowing white people to get trials.

Also, if I remember correctly, the right to travel is already pretty firmly established by the privileges and immunities clause.

|7.27.06 @ 8:19AM|#

Kip,

Of course it makes a difference. The smaller the body is that makes the decision, the easier it is for people to move between bodies and by their movement influence policy. That's not just a hypothetical, but how much of a difference it makes I can't say, in part because FDR's power grab and all the federal encroachment since has minimized the differences between states.

BTW, you don't even need to personally move in order to benefit from such an arrangement, just like you don't have to be a comparison shopper to get lower prices from stores that have a mix of attentive and oblivious customers.

Competition is good. Competition between governments is good. The smaller the government bodies, the more of them there are and, assuming they're really free to differ, the more experimenting that's available.

Will the Free State Project amount to anything? It's too early for me to tell. However, I think increasing respect for federalism in all three branches of the federal government will make FSP more compelling; decreasing such respect will neuter FSP. That's a non-trivial difference.

|7.27.06 @ 8:32AM|#

As long as the state is in the business of legitimizing marriage, should the state be allowed to treat some adults differently than others solely on the basis of sexual orientation? I don't think so.

Too bad that's not what state-run marriage really does. State-run marriage subsidizes people's life choice to be monogamous long-term at the expense of singles, in the form of tax breaks. So being opposed to gay marriage is not anti-libertarian, it's ensuring that singles don't have to support an entire new subset of looters. If gays want marriage so bad, let them take the right line and tell the state to get out.

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 8:44AM|#

State-run marriage subsidizes people's life choice to be monogamous long-term at the expense of singles, in the form of tax breaks

Actually, doesn't marriage bring about a tax penalty, at least for the one with the smaller income? I heard talk of repealing the marriage tax, but I don't think anything came of it.

As a (technically) single person myself, I don't think my tax bill would go down much if Americans stopped getting married.

|7.27.06 @ 8:46AM|#

Buchanan deserves much of the bashing, but like a broken clock, he is right on two issues I've read: reverse discrimination due to affirmative action, and the unintended consequences of forced "busing".

|7.27.06 @ 9:02AM|#

Actually, Jennifer, two single people who are an unmarried couple will pay more in tax...the marriage penalty affects the poor and those with generally equal incomes, but it is not as egregious as the amount singles are taxed for their lifestyle choice, as opposed to that magic institution that yields so many B.S. benefits for no real reason.

|7.27.06 @ 9:05AM|#

From Drudge today:

Dean Says Iraqi PM an 'Anti-Semite'...

Compares FL GOP candidate Katherine Harris to Stalin...

Calls for End to Divisiveness.

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 9:15AM|#

but it is not as egregious as the amount singles are taxed for their lifestyle choice, as opposed to that magic institution that yields so many B.S. benefits for no real reason.

What taxes do you currently pay that you wouldn't if you were married?

|7.27.06 @ 9:17AM|#

"If "state's rights" is simply a pathway to a more repressive world, what is it worth?"

This is a question that is far too infrequently asked around these parts. Nice article Nick.

|7.27.06 @ 9:19AM|#

strange....I thought I was the only 'Huh'. I guess there are two of us.

|7.27.06 @ 9:24AM|#

Ayn,

If the marraige tax was penalizing singles, why do the partial tax brackets not double when you're married. If you're making something like 60000 by yourself, you pay into the 25% tax bracket, whereas if you make 120000 combined, you pay into the 33% tax bracket, wouldn't an equivalent tax be still be 25% since you have two full grown adults.

There is a penalty for marraige, atleast in the straightforward taxing, however who knows what exceptions knock off taxes in the following 5000 pages of tax breaks.

|7.27.06 @ 9:30AM|#

Jennifer-

If two people earning 30K get married, their combined tax rates incur a marriage penalty, that is, their post-marriage taxes go up. However, if one partner is earning 60K and the other is not working, there is a marriage subsidy, a significant one at that. The reason singles are subsidizing marriage is because the penalty is around 400 dollars (on average) whereas the average subsidy is 1500 or more!

Larry A|7.27.06 @ 9:30AM|#

Indeed, if anybody fired the first volley in the tedious, ongoing melee we call "the culture war," it was Buchanan.

The first conservative, perhaps. But he was responding to Martin Luthor King, Timothy Leary, and Gloria Steinham from the 1960s. There are at least two sides in the culture war, and folks on both sides that want some idealized world where everyone is "the way they ought to be."

I'd love to see an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy where the gang corners the redneck and he says, "Okay. You can do the makeover. But your wardrobe suggestions have to take into account that I carry a concealed handgun."

|7.27.06 @ 9:32AM|#

Ayn,

The real money is in having children. If you have children you get a $500 per child tax credit as well as the dependent exemption. If you made under $50 or $60K a year, own a home and have a couple of kids, chances are you don't pay any federal income taxes beyond FICA and Medicaid.

|7.27.06 @ 9:32AM|#

Ayn, I don't understand the subsidy, because you have one person now supporting two. Isn't it a similar tax break as having any sort of dependent?

|7.27.06 @ 9:36AM|#

John,

But you still have to change diapers. For now, I'll pay my taxes thank you very much.

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 9:39AM|#

Ayn Randian, I fully sympathize with unconventional attitudes--I'm a woman who doesn't want kids, a straight person who doesn't want to get married, and possibly the only person who sympathized with the abolishment of the public schools while I actually worked in one.

But here's some sincere advice to those of us who stand outside the mainstream: stop pretending that the world would be an infinitely better place if only EVERYBODY sloughed off tradition like we do. Don't sneer at parents and call them "breeders," don't sneer at married couples and call them tax cheats or welfare queens, don't get so offended by people getting tax breaks for unemployed spouses . . . if we're going to end this stupid "culture war" bullshit, BOTH sides must lay down their weapons.

I'm (technically) single and childless not because that's a better way for people to live their lives, but because that's a better way for me to live my life. I think I'm probably happier than a married woman with kids. Not better--happier. Huge difference.

Besides, I'd rather have an unemployed woman supported by her husband than by the welfare state.

|7.27.06 @ 9:40AM|#

One of tax benefit for the married:

Medical and dental coverage: if one spouse carries the coverage for both spouses, then the coverage is tax free.

There are a number of other tax benefits to marraige, and they range over a wide area of married life, but this is an example of the sort of "perk" people generally benefit from.

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 9:43AM|#

Forgot to add: I have no problem with tax breaks for parents. Parenthood is a non-profit enterprise, after all.

|7.27.06 @ 9:54AM|#

I have no problem with tax breaks for parents. Parenthood is a non-profit enterprise, after all.


Uhhh, so what? So is smoking crack or being an alcoholic or a million other life choices. Can I deduct my Jack Daniels then, since it doesn't profit me in the least?

No one's lifestyle choice, no matter if it's parenthood or whatever, should be given tax breaks.

|7.27.06 @ 9:56AM|#

Jennifer,

I don't know if you've ever watched Futurama, but I remember when Bender the robot adopted 12 children because he would get government subsidies. Then after a week, he ran the numbers and realized he was losing twice as much money. Children certainly don't make life easier, even though they can make life more happy for some people.

|7.27.06 @ 9:57AM|#

Ayn,

I am sympathetic with you. People should pay for their own damn kids. There ought to be a flat tax with no tax breaks for kids, dogs, charity, iguanas or anything else. Just because you have children should not mean that you get out of paying taxes.

|7.27.06 @ 9:59AM|#

Ayn, smoking crack isn't quite comparable to raising children. I'm sorry, but that's way out in left field.

|7.27.06 @ 10:02AM|#

When figuring tax hits and subsidies, don't forget the government expenditures that benefit one class of people over another. Some single people have children, and benefit from programs such as spending on government schools (or even vouchers, where I live) that non-parents don't use. Couples with kids tend to buy more house than singles, too, and with property taxes and mortgage interest being deductible against Federal income tax, those who rent, and those who buy a cheaper house take advantage of those breaks to a lesser extent, or not at all.

This is all moot when the alternate minimum tax kicks in, as it does for an increasing number of all kinds of folks. Of course, oldsters whose kids, if any, have grown have their own gubmint bennies.

Kevin

|7.27.06 @ 10:03AM|#

Lost in Translation,

Having children is not like smoking crack, but it still is a choice with a lot of benefits. People don't have kids for the money. They have them as an end in themselves. I don't see why having chilren should exempt you from paying taxes.

|7.27.06 @ 10:08AM|#

kevrob,

Public libraries also gear a lot of their spending towards school-age (or younger) children. Not that I am opposed to public libraries.

|7.27.06 @ 10:14AM|#

Mr. Gillespie, "uncomfortability" is, indeed, NOT a word. Try "discomfort" next time. I'm going to let you off with a warning because you have a good writing track record and I liked the article otherwise, but do be more careful. You could end up being ordered to correct the galleys on the next Ann Coulter or Michael Moore book, you know.

|7.27.06 @ 10:32AM|#

don't get so offended by people getting tax breaks for unemployed spouses

So, if I live with and take care of my unemployed grandfather, should I get a tax break?

If I live with a girlfriend who's unemployed, should I get a tax break?

Why then do people get one if they are married? And why should I support adding others to this theft from singles and the childless?

Life choices are what they are, and one principle of governance should be neutrality; that is, no preference for anybody when it comes to policy and law. Right now, we have a preference for married folks and parents. It's wrong and it should stop.

|7.27.06 @ 10:49AM|#

wouldn't it be awesome if there was a reality show with a bunch of gays, evangelicals, goths, wannabe rappers, and muslims who have to share a house together. survivor: war front

Dan T.|7.27.06 @ 10:52AM|#

They have them as an end in themselves. I don't see why having chilren should exempt you from paying taxes.

I think it's because having children is a very expensive endeavor for individuals/couples but one that is necessary for society.

Think of it this way: people with children are raising future taxpayers, so it makes sense for the government to encourage them with tax breaks.

I suppose the philisophical question is whether every person should simply pay their "fair share", or whether the government should encourage certain behaviors (having children, buying houses, starting businesses, donating the charity) with tax breaks.

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 11:05AM|#

So, if I live with and take care of my unemployed grandfather, should I get a tax break?

I'd have no problem with that, if he's your actual dependent.

Right now, we have a preference for married folks and parents. It's wrong and it should stop.

Why? What is the harm in letting people who have children get tax deductions? And I mean solid, concrete harm, not the same "I have to pay MORE, dammit!" harm-excuse which sounds exactly like the excuses non-smokers use to justify smoking bans: "If you get sick that increases costs for society as a whole! Thus, your smoking harms ME!"

|7.27.06 @ 11:09AM|#

yeah, and like, it would be killer, if, you know, they sang and shit, like on American Idol and whatnot, knowwhatI'msayin?

|7.27.06 @ 11:09AM|#

yeah, and like, it would be killer, if, you know, they sang and shit, like on American Idol and whatnot, knowwhatI'msayin?

fyodor|7.27.06 @ 11:09AM|#

I see the place of federalism within libertarianism as being based on libertarianism's respect for the principle of jurisdiction, which in turn is based on libertarianism's concept of government as being a strictly limited phenomenon, meaning limited to particular roles and purposes.

Substitute "corporate freedom" for "state's rights" in Nick's rhetorical question, "If "state's rights" is simply a pathway to a more repressive world, what is it worth?" and you can see why Nick's barking up the wrong tree (most of you, that is; Jennifer will see why THE REST OF US are barking up the wrong tree!!). The purpose of government is not to make the world into exactly what you or I want it to be (that the world you would want and the one I would want would likely be very different is but one major reason why), but rather to perform particular limited roles.

Now, that doesn't mean I think it's "okay" for state governments to persecute their citizens any more than I think it's okay for the feds to do so. But the question is what can be done about it if and when that happens. This matter is largely analogous to the problem of state persecution in other nations. Only whereas our federal government has no jurisdiction at all outside US borders, it has limited jurisdiction within its borders, so you can say it's a difference of degree. I'm pretty okay with the relative levels of jurisdiction as setup by the US constitution, so I suppose I wouldn't be joining Pitchfork Pat's crusade to pass laws to restrict the SCOTUS's jurisdiction over everything he or possibly I disagree with its decisions about. But neither would my argument for federal involvement ever be so purely outcome based as Nick's quote above seems to suggest. Where limited jurisdiction is involved, there's a time and a place for the feds to be involved, and a time and a place for it not to be, and those times and places are already described (if, unfortunately, too often ignored) in the Constitutuion. If one thinks the current balance (based either on what the Constitution actually says or on how it's been misinterpreted) is not the best one, let him argue on principles of jurisdiction, not on what bad things the states could do given the power to do so. For the latter argument, of course, could easily cut both ways!

|7.27.06 @ 11:14AM|#

wouldn't it be awesome if there was a reality show with a bunch of gays, evangelicals, goths, wannabe rappers, and muslims who have to share a house together. survivor: war front

yeah, and like, it would be killer, if, you know, they sang and shit, like on American Idol and whatnot, knowwhatI'msayin? I mean, dude, it not like, well, you know what I mean.

|7.27.06 @ 11:21AM|#

yeah dude! i know exactly what you're saying. yeah! now im betting the wannabe rappers will come out, and thus form a team with the gays. meanwhile the muslims and evangelicals will realize they have something in common: hatred for gays and rap music. the goths will get picked on by everybody and cry and cut themselves while listening to emo crap.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|7.27.06 @ 11:32AM|#

Why? What is the harm in letting people who have children get tax deductions?

He answered the question in his explanation.

|7.27.06 @ 11:33AM|#

What is the harm in letting people who have children get tax deductions?

Fine, watch this then..."What is the harm in letting people who are white get tax deductions?"

First, it's called discrimination, and as I said, a principle of governance should be equality under the law. Secondly, subsidization of children means more children; whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's not something that government has any business encouraging. You subsidize something, you get more of it. Governments should not subsidize.

|7.27.06 @ 12:02PM|#

Ayn Randian asks, "So, if I live with and take care of my unemployed grandfather, should I get a tax break?" and Jennifer says that is fine with her.

I think just such a thing lies in our future. The lefties I work with often talk about the need for a "caregiver tax credit," and an adult caring for an aged parent is exactly the sort of person they have in mind. They are already conducting research on and lobbying for this sort of thing.

|7.27.06 @ 12:09PM|#

Well Ayn,

You are correct in that married couples are subsidized, but I guess I don't have a problem with that. I don't feel like they are given a higher standard of living because they're married, but in a way, they are rewarded.

As far as your statement regarding the change of children to "white people", any male and female can choose a child, but you can't choose to be white. There is equal opportunity in children, but not in the type of discrimination you mention.

|7.27.06 @ 12:14PM|#

Frankly, I think the tax system is broken in more ways than a simple marraige deduction, so I'm not standing up for our current tax code.

Frankly a national sales tax is much more of a viable option. Yeah yeah, then people will find loopholes, sure, but who needs 5000 pages of tax code.

Warren|7.27.06 @ 12:16PM|#

Nick,
I read this article with great interest. You put your finger on the one legitimate point of contention in your debate with Jonah. I notice too, that your position has moved considerably from your previous AFF debate, where you invoked the phrase "grassroots tyranny".

My position on this question of libertarianism is not settled. At this time, I am inclined to allow the village to forbid women from deliberately provoking the animal passions of men by showing their ankles. I am mindful of the objections you raise. I agree that the right of exit is paramount to assimilating autocracy within libertarianism. However, the concept of self-governance is essential to libertarianism. We would forbid the government to infringe upon our freedom. But freedom is as much (or more) about the right to abstinence, discipline, and temperance, than it is about promiscuity, and indulgence. We deny powers to the state that we exercise over ourselves. Furthermore, markets founded on property rights, and contracts are fundamental to libertarianism. People must be free, in conducting their own individual affairs, to form associations with other like-minded people. The essence of any such association is that's its members voluntarily submit to the requirements of the organization (often codified by contract) and agreeing to eschew certain rights, and exercise others in pursuit of a common goal.

It is correct to characterize libertarianism as promoting the principals of tolerance and inclusion. I think we must remain true to those principals by including the intolerant, but you might not agree.

|7.27.06 @ 12:27PM|#

any male and female can choose a child

Right, except those biologically unable. No discrimination there.

Children are a choice; choices should not be punished nor rewarded by government. How hard is this and what's the major objection to my point?

Here we go again: any male and female can choose......All sorts of things, both good and bad. Does not mean they should be rewarded.

|7.27.06 @ 12:28PM|#

Ayn Randian:

Somehow, reading your opinions of parents, makes me wish that your mother had made the proper lifestyle choice and avoided having children.

|7.27.06 @ 12:30PM|#

Ayn,

adoption, if you really want those tax credits.

|7.27.06 @ 12:32PM|#

This is a tough debate all around. I would tend to favor the states' rights view (with the "right of exit") only because in the real world there is no way to magically turn everyone into tolerant libertarians. Maybe it's better to allow the Christian culture warriors to go off and found their little "utopia" without bothering anyone else.

This brings to mind something I've always believed about the South. Had the Confederacy won, I think it would now be a banana republic shithole like so much of Latin America. Economically, the Confederacy had far more in common with Mexico or Venezuela than it did with Massachusetts or Ohio, and I think that, barring a successful slave revolt (which probably would have been inevitable), the plantation-based economy of the South would have led to a repressive, economically backward autocracy that the USA would constantly be bickering with and bailing out.

Would Buchananland end up being the same way? Hmm....

|7.27.06 @ 12:36PM|#

Ah, Warren.

That's the interesting conundrum.

Do we tolerate the intolerant?

Do we respect his lifestyle choices?

We can put a test. The presence or abscence of coercion. But that poses a problem, since removing coercion can only be done by applying coercion of your own. Force only yields to force, we learned in physics class, and that is also true in politics.

If you think then that coercion is justified to remove coercion against third parties, then your hero should be Abraham Lincoln who used coercion to remove coercion.

|7.27.06 @ 12:52PM|#

Ayn Randian asks, "So, if I live with and take care of my unemployed grandfather, should I get a tax break?"


If he qualifies as a dependent, you already get a tax break for him.

http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/deductions/article/101925/help_from_uncle_sam_in_caring_for_your_aging_parent


I agree with you though. Taxes should be completely flat.

|7.27.06 @ 12:52PM|#

reading your opinions of parents

And where did you read my opinion of parents again? You read my opinion about government subsidization of choice, not about parents.

Thanks for the worthless ad hominem. Your little remark added nothing to this debate.

|7.27.06 @ 12:56PM|#

Language police guy,
"uncomfortability" is no less a legitimate word than "discomfort." It's just longer. Where do you think words come from?

I need a drink...

|7.27.06 @ 1:01PM|#

5000 pages of tax code, 5000!!

thats what i have a problem with

|7.27.06 @ 1:02PM|#

17000 pages of tax code, 17000!!

thats what i have a problem with

|7.27.06 @ 1:13PM|#

haha, foiled by the server squirrels. Its ~17000 after I looked it up

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 1:53PM|#

Post attempt #5,457,385. May be a double, triple or milliontuple posting, which I first wrote something like two goddamned hours ago and keep re-hitting the "post" button whenever I get the "cannot find server" notation, which makes me suspect you could find the lost continent of Atlantis more easily than this goddamned server, but far be it from me to go on a rant here:

Children certainly don't make life easier, even though they can make life more happy for some people.

I am not certain why you addressed this to me; I never claimed having kids makes life easier. In fact, I suspect it makes life a lot more difficult, which is one reason I opted not to have any. But as I already said, I have no problem with tax breaks for people who take care of dependent children or indigent parents, and even if I did have a problem I would not, as a practical matter, stand on my minority high horse, puff out and scream that the mainstream majority of this country had fucking well better alter itself to the satisfaction of my statistically insignificant person.

Even if the "end tax breaks for kids" people stand on the firmest philosophical ground, it sounds too much like it's inspired by spite. Especially when such people seriously try to compare parents to crackheads, or claim that giving parents a tax break is as bad as favoring white people over blacks.

Secondly, subsidization of children means more children; whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's not something that government has any business encouraging.

So when government lets businesses write off any losses, this is a subsidy of loss and a government attempt to encourage more businesses to fail?

|7.27.06 @ 2:12PM|#

Especially when such people seriously try to compare parents to crackheads, or claim that giving parents a tax break is as bad as favoring white people over blacks.

For the first, it's only an example of a life-choice we don't give tax breaks for, and I asked why not. I never claimed they were the same. Disingenuous.

For the second, it's discrimination, plain and simple. It is as bad.

So when government lets businesses write off any losses, this is a subsidy of loss and a government attempt to encourage more businesses to fail?

Yes, just as the tax abatements encourage corporate irresponsibility and mortgage deductions (yet another discrimination against the poor, the young, the single and the childless) encourage home ownership...subsidize any thing, and you get more of it. It's Econ 100.

|7.27.06 @ 2:13PM|#

Especially when such people seriously try to compare parents to crackheads, or claim that giving parents a tax break is as bad as favoring white people over blacks.

For the first, it's only an example of a life-choice we don't give tax breaks for, and I asked why not. I never claimed they were the same. Disingenuous.

For the second, it's discrimination, plain and simple. It is as bad.

So when government lets businesses write off any losses, this is a subsidy of loss and a government attempt to encourage more businesses to fail?

Yes, just as the tax abatements encourage corporate irresponsibility and mortgage deductions (yet another discrimination against the poor, the young, the single and the childless) encourage home ownership...subsidize any thing, and you get more of it. It's Econ 100.

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 2:17PM|#

For the first, it's only an example of a life-choice we don't give tax breaks for, and I asked why not. I never claimed they were the same. Disingenuous.

You ask why we treat parents and crackheads differently, then claim you never said they were the same? Disingenuous.

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 2:17PM|#

For the first, it's only an example of a life-choice we don't give tax breaks for, and I asked why not. I never claimed they were the same. Disingenuous.

You ask why we treat parents and crackheads differently, then claim you never said they were the same? Disingenuous.

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 2:22PM|#

Okay, so now we've got posts appearing twice, rather than not appearing at all. This is called "progress."

Warren|7.27.06 @ 2:23PM|#

If you think then that coercion is justified to remove coercion against third parties, then your hero should be Abraham Lincoln who used coercion to remove coercion.

Abraham Lincoln used coercion to concentrate power in his own hands. Freeing the slaves was just a cover for his naked ambition, and was in fact carried out by others. (Amelioration: The abolitionist movement was impotent prior to the Lincoln administration. With Lincoln, the abolitionist found an opportunity to exercise influence not available within the established parties. Therefore it can not be said that Lincoln did not play the centeral role in freeing the slaves. Only that his motives were entirely self serving and he had no personal interest in doing so.) Besides, coercion isn't at issue here, or rather it is a suBtle issue. If people join the austere community of their own free will, then coercion doesn't enter into it. The question turns on, what degree of difficulty in leaving of their own free will, constitutes coercion.

Lost,
I agree, a gazillion pages of tax code is in itself a bigger problem than any injustice found in any one page of it. However, I see no solution. You could enact a one sentence tax code tomorrow (flat tax, sales tax, shag tax, whatever), in five years time the Congress will have amended another bazillion pages onto it.

|7.27.06 @ 2:36PM|#

I said that they are both non-profit enterprises and life choices, that's the extent they are the same. You were making a disingenuous argument by trying to attribute to me the attitude that one is equally as good as the other. They aren't I never said they were. They are both life choices, simple as that, and in the eyes of the government, one should not be favored over the other.

I note you have nothing to say concerning the discriminitory manner in which the tax is applied. Probably because you realize how odious the discrimination really is.

LIT --- if we had a tax break only for men, and told women that if they "really" wanted that break, they could just get the operation, do you think anybody would take that seriously? So why should we take a program that discriminates against singles and the biologically deficient seriously?

|7.27.06 @ 2:42PM|#

I said that they are both non-profit enterprises and life choices, that's the extent they are the same. You were making a disingenuous argument by trying to attribute to me the attitude that one is equally as good as the other. They aren't I never said they were. They are both life choices, simple as that, and in the eyes of the government, one should not be favored over the other.

I note you have nothing to say concerning the discriminitory manner in which the tax is applied. Probably because you realize how odious the discrimination really is.

LIT --- if we had a tax break only for men, and told women that if they "really" wanted that break, they could just get the operation, do you think anybody would take that seriously? So why should we take a program that discriminates against singles and the biologically deficient seriously?

|7.27.06 @ 2:44PM|#

I said that they are both non-profit enterprises and life choices, that's the extent they are the same. You were making a disingenuous argument by trying to attribute to me the attitude that one is equally as good as the other. They aren't I never said they were. They are both life choices, simple as that, and in the eyes of the government, one should not be favored over the other.

I note you have nothing to say concerning the discriminitory manner in which the tax is applied. Probably because you realize how odious the discrimination really is.

LIT --- if we had a tax break only for men, and told women that if they "really" wanted that break, they could just get the operation, do you think anybody would take that seriously? So why should we take a program that discriminates against singles and the biologically deficient seriously?

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 3:10PM|#

I note you have nothing to say concerning the discriminitory manner in which the tax is applied. Probably because you realize how odious the discrimination really is.

No, I don't think it's odious at all. If I'm making the same salary as some other woman, but I keep all my money for myself while she spends some of her money supporting another human being who is too young (or too old) to support himself, I am not offended by the fact that some of the income she spends on those people is tax-free.

Your talk about the unfair tax advantages enjoyed by parents would be more compelling if you could show me one example of a person who was poor, but then had lots of kids and got rich via tax advantages. (And I'm talking about working taxpayers here; I think we share the same opinion about the odiousness of a welfare system which pays people to have kids they can't afford.) Just one person who can honestly say "I used to be poor, but once I had three kids and got those three extra tax deductions I moved to Easy Street on my former-poor-person salary!"

Or personalize it, and explain how I would be financially better off if I kept my same job, but got pregnant today and had a kid in nine months.

Jennifer|7.27.06 @ 3:15PM|#

if we had a tax break only for men, and told women that if they "really" wanted that break, they could just get the operation, do you think anybody would take that seriously?

About as seriously as I'm taking your crackhead/black-white discrimination/sex-change analogies in relation to parenthood.

|7.27.06 @ 3:23PM|#

Jennifer,

Let's put it this way then. Why am I paying for you to have a child? How is this different than welfare or any other subsidy? It may appear as a $1500 tax break, but the government is going to get its money come hell or high water so they will end up charging me for that difference.

|7.27.06 @ 3:28PM|#

AR is correct. Having children is a choice, not something you are born with. Just as you can choose to get married or remain single you can choose to have a child or not. Why should anybody be forced, at gun point no less, to pay for your choices? Yes, raising children is expensive but so is buying a Mercedes. Both may make you happy but only one gets a subsidy.

|7.27.06 @ 3:32PM|#

Umm, Jen

I thought I was on your side of the argument, but I stick by my belief that children make some people happy. Mmmmhmmmm

|7.27.06 @ 3:36PM|#

I really don�t get how my viewpoint is objectionable here:

There is no such thing as �happening to have� a child; you chose to have sex, knowing the risks; then you chose to carry the child to term, AND FINALLY you chose to keep the child instead of putting it up for adoption, and now you�re entitled to a tax break because of your life choice? Having children is a choice and, for the final time, choices should neither be favored nor punished by the government, it violates �equal under the eyes of the law� and all that.

I don�t care what choice it is, whether you choose to get married, have a kid, smoke marijuana (or crack), eat at Wendy�s or eat a salad, NONE of it should be favored by the government at the expense of others who didn�t make your choice!

Secondly, Kwix is right, you think that the government just benevolently forgoes some of its money or what?

|7.27.06 @ 3:39PM|#

I really don�t get how my viewpoint is objectionable here:

There is no such thing as �happening to have� a child; you chose to have sex, knowing the risks; then you chose to carry the child to term, AND FINALLY you chose to keep the child instead of putting it up for adoption, and now you�re entitled to a tax break because of your life choice? Having children is a choice and, for the final time, choices should neither be favored nor punished by the government, it violates �equal under the eyes of the law� and all that.

I don�t care what choice it is, whether you choose to get married, have a kid, smoke marijuana (or crack), eat at Wendy�s or eat a salad, NONE of it should be favored by the government at the expense of others who didn�t make your choice!

Secondly, Kwix is right, you think that the government just benevolently forgoes some of its money or what?

|7.27.06 @ 3:52PM|#

Kip,

"Why not let smaller jurisdictions decide what they want?"
It makes no difference whatsoever whether my rights are being trampled at the federal level or the state level. To say that, "well, I don't like it, but at least it's federalism" is an inexcusably un-libertarian position and an embrace of statism, just with a different flavor.
See generally, "Chicago City Council."

Agreed that the trampling of rights by any government is wrong. However, it is hella easier to move from Chicago proper to the suburbs than it is to move from the US to Libertonia. The right of free association with like minded individuals will result in enclaves of people with like minded ideals. When these enclaves make rules for themselves that they all wish to follow that is fine. When these enclaves start making rules that impose on the rights of others you have a problem. There is a world of difference between a Home Owners Association and a City Council. The difference between a City Council and State Government is even greater. The divide between State Government and Federal Government is phenomenal. The smaller the sphere of control the easier it is to exit a situation and find the group that fits your ideals and needs. In addition the smaller the governmental body, and the populace it rules over, the easier it is to implement change. It's a hell of a lot easier to discuss flag burning issues with the 30 members of my HOA than it is with the 300million citizens of the US.

|7.27.06 @ 3:52PM|#

This brings to mind something I've always believed about the South. Had the Confederacy won, I think it would now be a banana republic shithole like so much of Latin America. Economically, the Confederacy had far more in common with Mexico or Venezuela than it did with Massachusetts or Ohio, and I think that, barring a successful slave revolt (which probably would have been inevitable), the plantation-based economy of the South would have led to a repressive, economically backward autocracy that the USA would constantly be bickering with and bailing out.

Would Buchananland end up being the same way? Hmm....


Boy do you have that right. Someone needs to write an alternative history novel where Pickett's charge actually succeeds and McClellen wins the Presidency in 1864 and the South is allowed to have her independence. Just imagine what it would have been like to have a slave holding society in the 20th Century. My guess is that there would have eventually been a successful slave revolt. Who knows what that would have meant, but there is only one place on earth that I know of where there has been a successful African slave revolt; Hati. It totally destroyed the economy and the all forms of civil society with it. I think the South's future, had it won the war would have been a lot closer to Hati than the modern United States.

I love to tell that to confederate sympathyzers. It pisses them off, but they never really have an answer to it, other than the old canard, "slavery would have solved itself." Yeah right.

|7.27.06 @ 7:03PM|#

Warren:

So you agree, that whatever Lincoln's motives were it was only with the use of the coercion he used that the coercion used by the Southern slaveholders could be stopped.

It takes coercion to stop coercion.

|7.27.06 @ 7:07PM|#

John: Yes, all those weeping for the lost cause of the Confederacy should be thankful that they were permanently hitched to the economic engine of the North, and did not end up a banana republic with big plantations and caudillos overthrowing the governmetn whenerver they liked it.

Some people do not know how lucky they are.

|7.27.06 @ 7:11PM|#

Ayn Randian:

It is the business of the Government to encourage you to have children, because they cannot Govern unless they have people to Govern, and childrne is the only way to get people.

You have to remember that Government, like all institutions has a longer time frame than the rest of us. Longer memory and longer prospects. So they figure out that it is in its best interest to have more children so that they can grow up and become useful members of the society.

|7.27.06 @ 7:25PM|#

It is the business of the Government to encourage you to have children, because they cannot Govern unless they have people to Govern, and childrne [sic] is the only way to get people.

Uhh, OK...and how is it my business and why is it I should suffer for this cause again?

|7.27.06 @ 9:14PM|#

Mississippi might outlaw almost all abortions; end forced busing for racial balance; forbid reverse discrimination against white folks; enact a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and women [sic]; allow Bible instruction, prayer, and posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools; and outlaw X-rated movies in all theaters. Mississippians could create the society they want, according to values in which a majority in which Mississippians believe.

Puke-anhan has just confirmed what I've been saying for years; When a conservative talks about "states rights" it's usually to give the state more power over the individual than the federal government would normal impose. Which begs the classic question the state-rights fanatics among the libertarian faithful: Why is local tyranny any better than the federal variety? And don't give me this bullshit about being able to move out of a repressive state to a freer one. Libertarianism 101 states that a human rights exist regardless of the state or majoritarian whim. It doesn't matter if the state of Mississippi wants to become Pat's white Christian version of Taliban-era Afghanistan, the state is wrong to violate my rights by imposing their racist, bible-beating mores upon me by force of law. One should never have to pack up their lives and move somewhere else to be able to enjoy the freedom their rights provide.

Or has libertarianism abandoned that messy notion of "rights" and not told me?

|7.27.06 @ 10:13PM|#

Ayn Randian, remember, someday you are going to be a burden on these kids (through the wonders of Social Security). Without having done much of anything to lessen that burden, like making a new taxpaying citizen or two to help them shoulder it.

Seriously, having children and providing a proper enviroment to raise them in is more vital to the well-being of society than your run of the mill "lifestyle choice", being unable or unwilling to concede that makes you sound a bit nutty in a sour, cranky sort of way.

Warren|7.27.06 @ 11:11PM|#

Akira,
Should libertarians forbid Christians from going to church and being faithful to their wives? Of course not. Libertarians believe free exercise of religion is a fundamental right.

So what happens when a bunch of Christians get together and form a community. They don't want dirty movies, gambling, and Rag-time, shameless music. Of course, there's nothing saying they have to support any of those things. But they want to live amongst other good Christians and not even have the temptation and ugliness of vice around them. Well it's not their place to tell others how to live, of course. But suppose they buy up a big plot of land and form a gated community. Don't they have the right to develop that land? And isn't it theirs to live on it any way they chose? Why can't they say "Welcome to Pleasantville. Here All citizens are to treat one another in a courteous and 'pleasant' manner." And outsiders are encouraged to come join their little magnolia-scented utopia, but to join you have to become a member of the association, and pay dues and agree to all the rules. So OK, it's fine for them to do all this as private citizens. But they're already collecting taxes (dues) and they have their own police force (security), and in all ways acting like a township. I don't see how any line is crossed when they decide to incorporate.

It's true we libertarians believe in rights. But part of that belief, indeed in my view an essential part, is the right to govern yourself, the right NOT to drink, gamble, fraternize with painted ladies etc. Also amongst our core libertarian rights, is freedom of association, the right to enter into relations with others, and to define those relationships on your own terms, and to be bound by them if you so chose.

And what makes it OK for Podunk and not for DC is that right of exit. The ability to live elsewhere if you don't like it. But not just in theory, the right of exit must be a practical option for those that live there. Defining just what I mean by practical option is the question I'm still exploring.

|7.27.06 @ 11:16PM|#

MJ: Good answer, except that Social Security or no Social SEcurity old people end up being a burden for the younger generation. Old people stop producing but do not stop consuming, so that younger people have to produce not just for themselves but for the old people. Whether it be that old people are supported by their children who then have to cut down on their own expenses, or the payment goes through the mechanism of taxes, they end up paying.

Of course Ayn Randian may be spared the indignity of being a parasite on the young if he has saved enough money, but since he is consuming without producing, he is causing prices to rise on the goods he consumes, as with his expenses the demand rises, while the supply stays the same.

When we are children we are parasites on our parents. When we are old, on our children and grandchildren. It is unwise for a future parasite to denigrate those who create the hosts that he will feed upon in thirty, forty years.

|7.28.06 @ 12:44AM|#

Warren,
I've also been wondering about this issue: what limits, if any, should be placed on people consensually forming their own communities? At first glance it really does seem consistent with the Founding and Libertarian principles. As long as the intolerant communities or states (how big does it have to be before a community becomes a state?) do not impose their ways on the rest of us, or their actions do not harm us, directly or through externalities, then it does seem to me they should have the right to live restrictive lives. They are not exercising coercion on the rest of us, and arguably, they are not with each other since they all agreed to their own minimalistic way of life.

It becomes trickier as the size of the community increases. Highly unlikely we could get a 100 percent agreement between people with the size of the states we have now. Perhaps these sorts of mini- states, within the states, could be tolerated within our system only if they could be insured that all members are contracted parties.

Also, you raise a valid point about the option to exit. This needs to be part of it. But what if the contract in some communities does not allow that option, to insure stability? If someone willingly signed then that would be consistent with libertarian principles. Yet, I feel uneasy about that. I'd like people also to have the option to change their minds - they cannot reasonably predict how this community will turn out or exactly what it will look like in advance.

A second conundrum is connected to the principles themselves - they have a right to do what they want *as long as they do not impose their way of life on us or attack us*. Basically, this is libertarian foreign policy right? Or I should say, Libertarian Party foreign policy. But it leads to the same problems, questions, as does the party foreign policy.

Finally, there's the question of the children. Should children have no rights at all? What about children born into these communities who are then married off very young, against their will? And what if for other reasons they do not like the community, state, they are living in, but there is a no option to exit clause?

Then again, isn't it a strange assumption that we would necessarily think that a larger state would be less tyrannical than a smaller one? How is it that once you have an outside governing body, it somehow becomes the wiser protecting body against grass roots tyranny when it itself might be just as tyrannical or more so?

So many questions around this issue - where to draw the line, if it should be drawn between states' rights and the federal government, and between community rights and assuring basic liberties. I'd like to see another longer article and debate on this one.

John, I think I'm basically in agreement with you on the Civil War. It's odd to hear some libertarians compare taxation to slavery but then when it comes to slavery itself in the South they say, 'well, it would have ended eventually.' It seems to me if ever there was a reason to fight a war, the fight to end slavery, seems like the best reason I can think of. I know this wasn't the main reason the North fought, but the fact is, slavery ended after the war. On the other hand I don't know if your claim is true that the South would look like one of the banana republics to the South. Those are very different cultures. Also, slavery probably would have died out some time in the late nineteenth century as it was on the whole a dying and not economically feasible arrangement. And considering how much of the South was destroyed in the war there's just as much of an argument that it was this destruction that retarded their economic growth throughout much of the 20th century. I don't know what the South would have looked like economically had there been no war, but my guess is that it would actually be in a bit better shape than it is now. But that doesn't make it moral to continue to allow such a system of chattel slavery to exist.

Adriana,
Governments don't have memories. People do. And those people *in* government live about as long as the rest of us - okay 'cept for Strom Thurmond. It's government's role to encourage people to have children? What the___? Are you channeling a 1950's era Mao Tse Tung?

|7.28.06 @ 12:54AM|#

Which begs the classic question

Akira, it raises the question. Begging the question is a logical fallacy concerning circular reasoning.

Pedantic, I know, everyone drink.

Seriously, having children and providing a proper enviroment to raise them in is more vital to the well-being of society than your run of the mill "lifestyle choice"

There is no particular reason for any individual to care about "the well-being of society", furthermore, if we're going to argue that a government-run program (Soc. Sec.) makes a government-instituted discrimination (bias against the childless) necessary, then we're all screwed; again, two wrongs don't make a right.

but since he is consuming without producing, he is causing prices to rise on the goods he consumes, as with his expenses the demand rises, while the supply stays the same.

Err, what? If I have enough money saved as an elderly person, that money has already produced quite a bit; it's increased the money supply and allowed banks and the like to produce loans.

And screw your "future parasite" argument. And just where did I denigrate children, parents, etc. anyway? I denigrated the idea that because of a choice you made that you should be favorably discriminated for at the expense of others.

Quit arguing with the Ayn_Randian in your head, folks; arguing against tax breaks for parents is no more anti-parent or anti-marriage than arguing against the war is anti-Soldier.

|7.28.06 @ 1:13AM|#

Maybe it's better to allow the Christian culture warriors to go off and found their little "utopia" without bothering anyone else.

Let's pick one state, give it over completely to the Jesuslanders and let them fend for themselves.

|7.28.06 @ 1:15AM|#

As to the other discussion, I am with *gulp* Akira on this one, you don't have the right to form a tax-based, geographically-dominant little society a la Footloose...if you live here and are protected by the U.S. Military, you comply with the supreme law of the land, the Constitution. And the 14th Amendment already made the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, so you don't get to violate any of those. Past that, you can do whatever you want, but if one person complains and is right about some township violating his rights, it is the township which has to change, not that one person by moving.

|7.28.06 @ 2:14AM|#

Ayn_Randian,
Suppose though a state or even a township wanted to secede from the Union. After secession they would only be under the protection then of their own military, however rudimentary it might initially be. Do you believe the states do not have the right to secede?

|7.28.06 @ 3:15AM|#

Ayn Randian:

Thanks for the correction. :)

Warren:
So what happens when a bunch of Christians get together and form a community. They don't want dirty movies, gambling, and Rag-time, shameless music. Of course, there's nothing saying they have to support any of those things. But they want to live amongst other good Christians and not even have the temptation and ugliness of vice around them. Well it's not their place to tell others how to live, of course. But suppose they buy up a big plot of land and form a gated community. Don't they have the right to develop that land? And isn't it theirs to live on it any way they chose?

If it were just a bunch of Bible-beaters voluntarily living in a private compound, then I would agree with you. But we're not talking about a gated community here, we're talking about a state (e.g. Mississippi) and all the police powers and governmental force that a state can muster and use upon those hypothetical godless miscreants who like to download porn, have bisexual orgies, and spend Sunday mornings smoking weed and playing D&D (pre-Third Ed.) rather than praying at the meeting house.

The ability to live elsewhere if you don't like it.

No. Wrong. False. As I said, if I have rights, then they should never be made null and void simply because of something as arbitrary as my geographic location. Nor should I have to pack up my existence and waste time, money, effort to find somewhere that will tolerate the freedoms that I'm suppose to have anyway.

In short, fuck 'em. I'm not budging. It's my home and my rights, and I should have to worry about having a democratic majority handy in order to keep them both. They're the ones with the problem, not me.

Besides, as you pointed out, a free society allows one to avoid all the "evils" that the Christians find so repellent. The way I see it, they shouldn't need a series of laws or a separatist community to keep them from their own temptations. (If they do, maybe that should tell them something about how unrealistic and stupid their personal expectations really are?) Do you think abortion is horrible? Fine, then don't have to have one. Don't like homosexuality? Fine, you don't have to fuck someone of the same gender. Don't care for "porn?" Fine, toss the Victoria's Secret catalogs in the trash. Anyway, I'm not the one telling them how to live. They can make that choice on their own. However, they seem incapable of extending that same courtesy to me.

Whether it's Podunk, or Federal doesn't matter because it's all about the same thing: Getting control over other people's lives and punishing them despite their rights. The way I see it, no libertarian should ever tolerate that ideology whether it's being used whether it's coming from the Oval Office, or the Town Hall of Rat's Ass, Alabama. Tyranny is tyranny, no matter how big or small.

|7.28.06 @ 3:16AM|#

Another point is there could be a situation where a group of people buy a plot of land and decide to start their own community, sign onto rules they all agree to abide by. In this case, they aren't forcing someone to choose between abiding by their rules or moving out. Township members are only choosing to be a part of moving *to* the new community or not.

|7.28.06 @ 3:25AM|#

EDIT: The way I see it, no libertarian should ever tolerate that ideology whether it's coming from the Oval Office, or the Town Hall of Rat's Ass, Alabama.

|7.28.06 @ 3:28AM|#

Maybe it's better to allow the Christian culture warriors to go off and found their little "utopia" without bothering anyone else.

But that's just the problem, they don't want to stop bothering anyone else, their religion demands that they evangelize and save us in spite of ourselves or to destroy the forces of "immorality" that they claim threaten to decay the moral fabric of their "utopia."

For a good example, look at the Middle East.

|7.28.06 @ 4:10AM|#

Akira,
I essentially agree with you on the state's rights issue, as we wouldn't get 100 percent agreement on laws nor would we even likely get a super-majority, forcing many non-consenting people to move.

You seem somewhat less clear about your stance on the right of smaller gated communities or townships to form and develop their own set of consensual restrictive laws. A few posts back you say you recognize the right of the gated community to set its own rules but then you say later that you don't care if those laws come from the Oval office or some township in Alabamy. Either way they are violations of your basic rights. Care to clarify?

Anyone,
If we don't recognize the right of the Amish or any other sort of restrictive exclusive community to set its own rules what's the difference between that view and the view that property owners, such restaurant owners, do not have the right to set their own rules, however discriminatory in their own establishments?

|7.28.06 @ 8:54AM|#

Ayn Randian:

The money you may have stashed away at your old age will only be good if goods are produced. It is not the same as if you had stashed nuts all over your life and ate them.

If you have money, all you have it the ability to buy nuts, **provided that someone has produced them**, if no one has, then you are left with some unedible metal.

As for denigrating parents and children, that's what you do when you call having children a choice on the same level as becoming a crack addict. And it is not. A crack addict will never produce nuts for you to buy in your old age. A screaming, expensive baby will.

|7.28.06 @ 9:03AM|#

lortsnaff:

Government, like all institutions, mimics a living organism in its behavior (it seeks to preserve itself and to reproduce) enough that words like "memory" can be used in regard to them, even in a metaphorical way. It is a view that, like all views, is to be judged on its ability to make accurate predictions.

As to whether smaller units are more tyrannical than large, depend on it. Small units tend to be much pettier and more likely to interfere with your day to day life, because they have much less people to use their resources in. A large unit has to make choices on how to use those resources, and, as they say in Argentina "don't wate gunpowder on chicken hawks". A small unit instead thrives on hunting chicken hawks.

|7.28.06 @ 9:07AM|#

Hayekian Harridan:

The problem with communities like the Amish, and those who would enter a covenant to live in similarly restricted way, is that their children do not have the choice their parents have, and should they decide to live differently they'd have to move and lose all contact with their family and friends, and go live surrounded by strangers.

Warren|7.28.06 @ 10:17AM|#

Akira,
Please, take a deep breath and try to work with me for a minute here. I understand your position, and my inclination is to agree with you. However, if you come at the problem from the other direction, I think you will appreciate my point.

Anyway, I'm not the one telling them how to live. They can make that choice on their own. However, they seem incapable of extending that same courtesy to me.

Not true, they want to raise their children in a wholesome community without a dirty bookstore on the corner. Ah, "Tough beans" you say. Their rights can't trump your rights. (BTW, how far do you go with that line of reasoning? Do you have a right to walk naked down the street? What about public masturbation?)

Do you think abortion is horrible? Fine, then don't have to have one. Don't like homosexuality? Fine, you don't have to fuck someone of the same gender. Don't care for "porn? Fine, toss the Victoria's Secret catalogs in the trash."

Yes, well and good. However, they can do more than that. They can associate with others who wish to live as they do. This too is a fundamental right. As libertarians, we must surely honor the exercise of free association as soon as we would any other right. You seem to allow for this when you say,

If it were just a bunch of Bible-beaters voluntarily living in a private compound, then I would agree with you. But we're not talking about a gated community here, we're talking about a state�

OK fine, but let's put the state aside for a moment. You agree that they can live as they choose in their compounds and gate communities. What I'm saying is that, I don't think what was perfectly acceptable (commendable even) under a libertarian framework, suddenly becomes contemptible and unacceptable when they incorporate their compound into a township. Everything is as it was, so why do they suddenly lose their right to self-govern.

|7.28.06 @ 11:37AM|#

"As to whether smaller units are more tyrannical than large, depend on it."

That's a good one, Adriana. Let's see, Nazi Germany, The Soviet Union, China, many of the African nations, and on and on....nope, these don't count as smaller units where I come from. The larger and more powerful the state, especially with no liberal institutions available to place checks on power, the more damage it is capable of doing. And as power gets further removed from the people the harder it is to redress grievances. One advantage of a system that would allow for small communities with near to total autonomy is that you would be able to choose from many existing choices. Of course, as I already mentioned, this doesn't mean you wouldn't find problems with right's violations as well, or with exit strategies for grown children who want to opt out. There might be reasons to prefer federalism, at least the U.S system of federalism, over a system of thousands of autonomous communities, but the easy answer that smaller units would automatically be more tyrannical is unfortunately not a good one as it is historically, as well as theoretically, so obviously false.

|7.28.06 @ 12:06PM|#

Adriana, if you treat children as some kind of investment to bet on, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

|7.28.06 @ 12:08PM|#

Adriana, if you treat children as some kind of investment to bet on, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

|7.28.06 @ 12:12PM|#

HH:

A few posts back you say you recognize the right of the gated community to set its own rules but then you say later that you don't care if those laws come from the Oval office or some township in Alabamy.

A gated community is a private arrangement. I don't have to join them if don't want to. Government, on the other hand, does not tend to let their citizens choose to ignore their laws. That's the difference.

|7.28.06 @ 12:39PM|#

"The problem with communities like the Amish, and those who would enter a covenant to live in similarly restricted way, is that their children do not have the choice their parents have, and should they decide to live differently they'd have to move and lose all contact with their family and friends, and go live surrounded by strangers."

Okay, but that answer doesn't get to the question I asked. I'll repeat my question:

If we don't recognize the right of the Amish or any other sort of restrictive exclusive community to set its own rules what's the difference between that view and the view that property owners, such restaurant owners, do not have the right to set their own rules, however discriminatory in their own establishments?

|7.28.06 @ 12:50PM|#

Regarding income tax deductions for dependents: Let's not fall into the fallacy that the government deigning to allow you to keep more of what you earned is some kind of subsidy. There is case in justice to start taxing a single person at $N while a family unit of 2 or more individuals doesn't start paying until it hits $N + $X. The whole idea of starting the tax brackets or a flat rate after subtracting the standard deduction is so that the government doesn't tax a subsistence level of income. Obviously, if a family has 2 or more members, their subsistance level will require more cash than that of a single person. Since the tax reforms (arguably sic) since ~1978, millions of low-income families and individuals have escaped paying non-FICA Federal income tax. I don't see this as a bad thing. What would be the point of taxing them? Many would turn around and ask for government assistance to make them whole, anyway. Consider real property taxes, which are usually levied on the first dollar of assessed value. All sorts of homestead exemptions and rebate plans have been concocted to keep the government from taxing the lower-income property owner out of his or her house.

In a system of consumption taxation, such as a sales tax or VAT, this problem would be dealt with, as in many of the several states with such levies, by exempting certain products deemed necessities from the tax.

As for voluntary communities, gated or not, once they cross the line from consensus to coercion when enforcing their rules, they have ceased to be associations and are acting as if they were units of government. As such, they are subject to the civil rights and republican government clauses of the Federal constitution, and have to be organized according to the laws of their state as to incorporation. In my state, "shared revenue" - funds in the state budget raised from the sales and income taxes and rebated to localities - is a significant source of municipal revenue. If Jesusland wants some of that cash, they'd better follow the state and federal constitutions.

If they don't cross the coercion line, I'd let them have do their thing, on their own dime, of course.

Kevin

|7.28.06 @ 1:07PM|#

Akira wrote,
"A gated community is a private arrangement. I don't have to join them if don't want to. Government, on the other hand, does not tend to let their citizens choose to ignore their laws. That's the difference."

Okay, thanks, I think I get it now. But suppose the gated community we are talking about actually evolves into a township, or a large group of people purchase a large tract of land and intentionally plan to form a township where all who plan to move there are doing so of their own free will. They set up a small governing council, appoint a sheriff, build a jail, etc. Would you object to this arrangement? Another way of asking the question would be, at what point does the gated community become so large, if that's part of the criteria, that it looks no different from any mini-city state and should be thought of as categorically different from a gated community? Or is the criteria not about size at all but only about whether there is 100 percent consensuality of all members in the community/township/state?

|7.28.06 @ 1:31PM|#

But suppose the gated community we are talking about actually evolves into a township, or a large group of people purchase a large tract of land and intentionally plan to form a township where all who plan to move there are doing so of their own free will.

And what if my land is on the tracts they plan to buy? Of course, I can say "no", but we all know how useful that is in the face of imminant domain. Even if they didn't, I'm sure they would eventually demand that as a "good neighbor" and live as they do... or else. (And they WILL, they're fucking Chirstians, their religion demands that unbelievers convert or be punished.)

Or is the criteria not about size at all but only about whether there is 100 percent consensuality of all members in the community/township/state?

Precisely. Why should the majority have any say over what the minority, even if it's a minority of one, over what they do when it's been established that they have a right to do so? The second your Christian gated community becomes a official township, they're going to have to abide by the Bill of Rights; If the Bill of Rights says porn is protected speech, then they have to allow for it's production, sales and consumption. If it says that they can't establish a religion, they they can't go around keeping Jews, Muslims, and atheists from living there. If it says that the state has no power over the sex lives of it's citizens, then it has to strike the anti-sodomy/anti-birth control laws.

Then again, if they want to succeed from the union and declare themselves independent of the U.S. then the problem is solved... until they start marching across their borders to punish the sinners and convert the heathen.

|7.28.06 @ 1:58PM|#

lortsnaff:

There is a reason why people move out of small towns into the large city, and that is to stay away from prying neighbors who insist that you live your life the way they think they should.

I do not say that large units cannot be tyrannical (and that when they do they can be very nasty indeed) but that to a large unit micromanaging the lives of its citizens becomes too onerous. At some point they figure out that their police has enough work to do without worrying as to how long are the skirts in the strolling ladies, or if they pink flamingoes in your lawn are an eyesore.

I lived in a small city and I saw attempts to ban men from taking off their shirts in the City dock, or using a plastic trellis instead of a wooden one, actions that the Federal Government would think it has too much gravitas to bother with.

The smaller the unit, the pettier, and the likelier to micromanange you to death.

May you never find out how much.

|7.28.06 @ 2:21PM|#

Akira,
And what if the land they plan to buy is not your land? I'm not talking about eminent domain or forcing you off your land. I'm talking about legal purchases of property. That's it. And if the community becomes an official township with 100 percent agreement, then I see no difference between the gated community and the township categorically.

|7.28.06 @ 2:57PM|#

Let's see, Adriana, what's more tyrannical, passing ordinances against men going shirtless in public or burning down religious compounds (Waco),forcibly sending a generation of young men to die in a foreign war many don't believe in (Vietnam), killing or jailing hundreds of thousands of people in a drug war when at least a a majority of drug sellars are non-violently engaged, placing a race of people in a detention camp (Japanese internment)? And that's a best case scenario of a large nation state - worse examples are Pol Pot's Cambodia, Hitler's Germany, the Soviet Gulags, and so on.

You are also mixing categories a bit. What I'm wondering about is a private community where all members have agreed to all the rules. If the rule is no topless exposure of both sexes and all members have agreed to it, then how is it tyrannical or even petty?