Posted on 09/02/2017 7:06:31 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
“It’s because of the individual making society better, despite government. I can speak to this first hand because I did this myself. I didn’t wait for some park ranger or government official to walk by and clean up that empty paper cup for me. I bent over all by myself, picked up that paper cup, and I walked over and threw it in the trash without having to be told to do so.
I did it because it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t my trash. But so what? It needed to be done. Progressives do not think this way.”
I was walking with my leftist friend in DC after a storm.
I picked up some branches partially blocking his street and put them in a pile by a curb.
He became angry.
He as a renter didn’t directly pay a cent in property taxes.
As he sees it, having the city pick up branches is a “free” service that also provides local people with jobs.
The fact that his neighbors would have to drive carefully for about a week to avoid the branches didn’t matter.
Liberals deny God and elevate the state to its place. When the state is your faith, your source of all good and morality, of course you don’t want anything else to exist as a competitor or outside of it.
And how is it that some social 'conservatives' confuse "society" and "government"? Some argue that government must ban certain vices because those vices are harmful to society.
I know a farmer who did exactly that. Said he was just gonna build a fence to keep out the noise. He was also the man living next to them. Lol.
Some ancient income taxes:
“some specific instances of the Mesopotamian tithe, taken from The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Vol. 4 ‘E’ pag.369,:
[Referring to a ten per cent tax levied on garments by the local ruler:] ‘the palace has taken eight garments as your tithe (on 85 garments)’’...eleven garments as tithe (on 112 garments)”
“The tithe is specifically mentioned in the Books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The tithe system was organized in a three-year cycle, corresponding to the Shemittah-cycle. These tithes were in reality more like taxes for the people of Israel and were mandatory, not optional giving. This tithe was distributed locally ‘within thy gates’ (Deuteronomy 14:28) to support the Levites and assist the poor.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe
Then you would be incorrect. Some of those listed items are the jurisdiction of local and state governments.
Imagine you live on a $1.2 million five-acre estate backing to farmland
Not the business of the Federal Government but zoning is the business of local government.
Imagine if your farmer neighbor decided subdivide 10 acres that lovely farmland into a 30-tarpaper shack per acre subdivision
Not the business of the Federal Government but zoning is the business of local government.
Many of your new neighbors would have kids
Not the business of the Federal Government or state government.
If you had a public school system it would become vastly overcrowded
Not the business of the Federal Government but public school education is the business of state and local government.
Maybe the new neighbors might have motor vehicles
Not the business of the Federal Government but vehicle registration is the business of state government.
They might consider auto insurance a luxury
Not the business of the Federal Government but mandatory liability insurance is the business of state government.
Many might also be lousy drivers. One might make a big impression into the back end of your new Mercedes
Not the business of the Federal Government but vehicle operation is the business of state government.
Madison in Federalist No. 45: The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.
The left you observe today didn't exist in 1913. Who, in 1913, would object to a 1% tax on income over $20,000 when the average income was less than $1,000 a year?
Few would. But voters in the Northeast weren't that crazy for it because they were the people who had the most money. They saw it as a plot to take away their money.
It was exactly that, the first "soak the rich" agenda. Who is rich and who decides who is rich was the question then and is a question now.
Earners considered rich in 1913 earned around $3,000 annually.
Earners considered rich in 2013 earned around $300,000 annually.
None of the $3,000 of the 1913 earner’s income was subject to tax.
Virtually all $300,000 of the 2013 earner’s income is subject to tax.
Keep in mind, only the amount over $20,000 was subject to the 1% tax. The next bracket after the 1% tax bracket on incomes over $20,000 was $500,000. Income over $500,000 was subject to a 5% tax.
The IRS administrating America's tax code currently collect 97% of taxes from the top 50% wage earners.
Not only do the wealthy pay their fair share, they pay everybody’s fair share.
Back in the day, a Civics teacher gave a homework assignment intended to teach - as the teacher smugly said the next day - that “society” meant nothing other than “government.” At the time, I did not accept the teacher’s notion, but I did not then know that the very start of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense puts paid to that idea:SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.Socialists love to use euphemisms - “society” when they mean government,“liberal” or “progressive" when they mean socialist, and so on.Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . .
I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. Of course a particular company - Eberhard Faber, in the example instance - made the pencil. But Mr. Eberhard and Mr. Faber did not simply speak the pencil into existence; the company has to have buildings housing machinery, and workers to operate the machines. But beyond that, the Eberhard Faber workers have to have food, shelter, and normal amenities - including those required by their families.
And the same is true of the vendors who supply Eberhard Faber with the machinery they require, and all the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel. All those vendors have their own equipment, workers, and supply chain. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities. So although the pencil certainly does not exist without Eberhard Faber, society works together to make pencils - and everything else.
So, “you didn't build that? Somebody else made that happen?” Yes - but that “somebody else” was not government. The “somebody” was more like everybody - mostly very indirectly.
Government planning is merely interference in society’s subtle workings by people who have nowhere near the competence needed to make such large decisions and be responsible for them. It is nothing more than the irresponsible separation of responsibility from authority, in violation of the first principle of good management. Improvement in efficiency via government “planning” is a paper tiger.
Their writings from that time period prove otherwise.
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