General News Crooked $Clinton may be replaced... I might cry...

I seriously doubt it too. I think that right now, the whole health issue is overblown by the media and the Trump campaign, but in the end it won't make a difference. The main issue between the campaign is Trump versus a traditional Democratic candidate. Trump's biggest enemy is his mouth. You could probably run a tree stump against Trump and he's still going to lose in November.

 

Trump isn't polling too poorly I wouldn't be so sure.

 

I've been getting e-mails trying to shake money out of me, either from Hillary Clinton's campaign, or those who support her. (No idea how I got on the e-mail list--I suspect that my name got bought at some point...) One theme I've noted recently has been discussion of Trump doing too well in polls, and so they want my money so they can go out and fight Trump.

Of course, even if I had spare cash to waste on politicians, I wouldn't donate a dime. The DNC and high level Democrats decided that Hillary Clinton was the Appointed Choice. Let them figure out how to buy the election. If all else fails, maybe Hillary can give her Wall Street friends another one of her rousing, sky high expensive speeches...

 

I wanted Bernie, but between Trump and Clinton, I'm another one who hopes it's Trump.

I constantly hear how horrible Trump is, but if you do some research, you can see it's an act. He acted like a crazy right-wing fanatic to win the Republican primaries and now he's moving to the centre in a lot of ways, which is where he was in the past (listen to old interviews). With what he's saying now, he sounds way to the left of his party. If it isn't another act (and since it matches his past opinions, I don't think it is), he might actually get some of it done.

Worst case is that Trump is a crazy right-wing disaster and gets nothing done, then Democrats win it all in 2020. Maybe the Democrat in 2020 will be another crooked, corrupt, inept warmonger like Hillary Clinton, but maybe it'll be someone like Bernie. His supporters will have four years to try and take down the corrupt elites who handed the crown to Clinton. Maybe they can do it if she loses. If she wins? Probably not.

The biggest reason I hope it's Trump is more selfish. I don't want more wars and regime changes in the Middle East and North Africa that will cause a larger flood of refugees to Europe. I feel for people trying to escape those places, but how can people who are conservative, super-religious and, by western standards, extremely sexist and homophobic, function in western societies? They need safe haven in other countries in the region, but most of all, they need to be able to live in their own countries in peace, without invasions, bombings, drone strikes, regime change, etc. Clinton is in favour of all of those things. Her record shows she's simply far too dangerous to be allowed anywhere near the levers of power again.

 

I agree that Hillary isn't going anywhere and that Trump is probably not winning because even though there are a bunch of ignorant people in the United States, I don't think there are enough to allow a demagogue to win. People overreact to Hillary's health but they don't seem to mind that Trump has a chronic case of Foot in Mouth disease.

 

To me, Hilary represents Alma Coin from Mockingjay.

 

Hm... My family is majorly conservative. They hate Hillary. I actually kind of like her.

 

Yup.

So, while it totally sucks on some levels, I'm voting for Clinton in November. She ain't perfect, but the alternative is a racist, fascist dumbshit.

Want to pull HRC to the left? Start working on congress now. complaining about shit you can't win, while there are potential wins to be had is a losers strategy.

Hillary Clinton is a left leaning moderate. Who is more likely to sign left leaning legislation, Clinton or Trump?

It's a really easy choice, even when you take into account the worst things you can throw at Clinton.

Want to push things differently? Great. There are ways to do that.

Voting that makes Trump more likely are not among those

 

Trump is a populist, not a fascist, and he isn't nearly as bad as a lot of populists in Europe, like Wilders or Le Pen (whose father is probably pretty close to being an actual fascist). It's really ridiculous to use that kind of term when you know what fascists are and what they did when they had power. It's kind of like those Tea Party people who claim Clinton is a Stalinist or something. Come on, you really think that?

At any rate, one of the worst things fascists did was invade other countries and start wars all over the place. Of the two major US candidates, one of them loves doing that stuff too and it isn't Trump. He's definitely xenophobic and Islamophobic, but claims that he's racist, sexist, etc. don't hold up under scrutiny. He's also an isolationist who's much, much less likely to start new wars than Clinton. What's worse, a person who uses Islamophobic rhetoric or a person with a record of policy decisions that actually kill huge numbers of Muslims? Which do you think is going to cause more revenge attacks like the one in 2001?

 

Although he got a bump in the numbers recently, the numbers will settle back to where they were as it gets close to election time. (unless some bizarre thing happens) At the end of the day Trump is still going to lose, and lose big time, at least in the electoral college count. Although I don't think it will happen, if I were allowed to bet money, Gary Johnson has a higher chance of winning (or creating a situation where he could occupy the office) more than Trump.

---------- Post added 16th Sep 2016 at 05:53 AM ----------

So are mine, but most of them aren't voting for Trump either. Trump is not a true social conservative and the evangelicals know it. Also his economic policies are worse than Clinton's for many republicans. There are good reasons why Wall st. supports Clinton over Trump. The worst issue for my family is probably the immigration issue. It's both social and economic for some Republicans.

 

I still disagree, but that's reasonable. I don't think being able to avoid certain types of taxation is sufficient, moving is difficult, and I don't think it being expected makes any notable difference ethically. I do appreciate your response, rather than just writing my question off. Thanks for the perspective.

 

I think the main ethical argument for taxation comes from the fact that ownership of land and other natural resources is kind of arbitrary. If some feudal warlord or colonial power conqered some land a few hundred or thousand years ago, and gave it to someone, it isn't really clear why their descendants (or people who bought it from them or their descendants) have any more innate right to it than anyone else.

Ownership of land and other natural resources is something we need for practical reasons, because if there's common ownership, people will destroy it (that's what the theories say and it's what happened in practice in central/eastern Europe under Marxist socialism). Even in mixed/market economies, things that can't be easily assigned propertly rights (e.g. air) get destroyed unless there's regulation to prevent it. So, private ownership is a necessity, but people who are allowed to have a monopoly on a resource that is 'naturally' common should compensate the society that grants them that monopoly. Taxation is an obvious way to do that.

You can exclude natural resources like land and say that everything else that you own, either because you created it or because you created something you exchanged for it, is yours by right. The trouble with that argument is, how much could you create without all the institutions of the society you live in, which are paid for by taxes? A lot of things we need in society can't be efficiently provided privately, so we need the state to manage provision. The state needs to be funded, and taxes are, again, an obvious way to do that.

I get the point that a lot of taxation seems arbitrary and unfair (which it sometimes is), but what is the ethical basis of ownership rights to natural resources (without any compensation to society), which were ultimately taken by force (if you go back far enough)? How can it be ethical to not pay for public institutions (infrastructure, police, military, education, healthcare, social insurance, pensions, etc.) when everyone in society relies on some of them to some degree? If it's accepted that they have to be paid for, what is the alternative to tax?

Just my thoughts.

 

It'd be political suicide. Sanders is popular, but they've established Clinton now. With this little time before the election, all they'd do is make sure Trump would win.

 

I feel like people respecting land is natural, and there's no need to pay any compensation for it. I think the compensation is how it serves society that people do own land.

"what is the ethical basis of ownership rights to natural resources (without any compensation to society), which were ultimately taken by force (if you go back far enough)?" Taking/utilizing natural resources by force involves work, so it seems just that one should keep the result of that work without a force imposing taxation on it.

"How can it be ethical to not pay for public institutions (infrastructure, police, military, education, healthcare, social insurance, pensions, etc.) when everyone in society relies on some of them to some degree?" I believe that some of these should be privatized (specifically healthcare, social insurance, and pensions), but regardless, I don't think that anyone should be obligated to pay for other people's things, and if someone decides for themselves that they don't believe that publicly funded infrastructure, for example, is a good idea, I don't think it's right they should have to pay for it even if they may be wrong. Of course, it's good to pay for other people's healthcare or whatever, but I think individual autonomy and absolute property rights are more important. You have a right to property, you do not have a right for someone to do things for you, and the belief that you do has worrying implications.

"If it's accepted that they have to be paid for, what is the alternative to tax?" I'm only against involuntary taxation. For example, sales tax, lottery tax, and donation. People could fill out forms stating how much money they would pay, and which specific areas they want it to be used towards. I support privatizing healthcare, but if people voluntarily put their money towards it, I think that's wonderful and would work great socialized (I'd put money towards it too). There could even be a minimum percent you have to pay (not ideal, but I got to be pragmatic at some point), but it would still greatly increase liberty. Also I want the size of government to be greatly reduced anyway, so lost revenue is okay.

 

How does it serve those who don't own the land?

The problem is there's a limited supply. When you take some land by force, you're depriving everyone else of the right to use it (including the people you took it from, but also everyone else).

Privatisation doesn't work, because there are public goods issues. With health, everyone benefits to some extent from a healthier population. With education, everyone benefits to some extent from having more educated and productive citizens. If you choose not to buy healthcare (including vaccinations, treatment for infectious diseases, etc.), then you spread diseases to everyone else, including for example infants who haven't yet received vaccinations. If you choose not to buy education, you're more likely to be unemployed and need support from other citizens. With infrastructure, you can make a private arrangement to finance it, but then you have to waste a lot of resources blocking access to anyone who isn't a member of the group that paid for it.

Public pensions solved a huge problem that used to exist. If you decide not to save when you work, then if you live to an age when you're no longer able or willing to work, you'll end up being in poverty when old. That happened to a lot of people before public pensions, and old people in poverty needed others to support them. Most mentally normal people won't let old people in their society die of starvation and exposure to elements, so without public pensions, are effectively forced to pay for the ones who decide not to save. By agreeing that everyone has to pay, you stop the problem of the responsible ones having to pay twice (once for themselves and again for the irresponsible ones).

A right to land requires politicians, bankers, lawyers, judges, police, military, etc. to work for you. They have to define laws and currency, record transactions, settle disputes, enforce settlements, etc. It also deprives others of using the land, for arbitrary reasons. The right to health requires doctors, nurses, researchers, etc. to work for you. The right to education requires teachers, professors, researchers, etc. to work for you. Both also deprive others of using the health/education resources. It's all pretty much the same.

People working for you in the public sector, whether related to property rights or to other rights like health or education, aren't forced to work for you. You don't have a right to force them to do anything. They choose to work for you because you and other taxpayers have indirectly (through voting) decided to pay wages that are high enough to attract them. If people don't want to work for you, they work for private institutions or choose different careers. If voters don't offer high enough wages, they'll work for someone else.

The fact that property rights aren't meaningful unless people work to enforce them for you goes back to the point of the arbitariness of ownership of land. Land is owned by people because, at some point in the past, someone who was strongest took it by force from someone else. It eventually trickled down to the current owners, who bought it, inherited it or were given it by the state. People pay taxes (on property and other things) so that society doesn't revert to the previous state, where the strong took whatever they wanted and the weak had no rights in practice. Thanks to taxes and the state, we can buy and sell land instead of taking it by force.

If you want to avoid taxation, it's possible to, say, live on a boat in international waters. If you do that, though, you'll kind of be free-riding on taxpayers in the nearby countries, who pay for patrolling of waters to prevent piracy. To avoid free-riding, you could go to a lawless area where piracy exists. You'd have to make sure you have enough arms and ammunition to enforce your property rights against the pirates, though, because they don't recognise them. You could possibly form a voluntary associated with others to defend each other from pirates too. You'd have to agree how things are paid for etc. If you make an arrangement based on voluntary rather than mandatory contributions, all the research evidence suggests it will break down as soon as a few people decide not to contribute. That's why societies aren't generally organised around voluntary taxation in practice.

 

I honestly do not get how anyone can support Trump.

First, people talk about how he has changed since the primaries but ignore the fact he said all these crazy things. They seem so sure that the moderate Trump is the real Trump but the pivot works both ways. Is he a moderate that pivoted to the right to win the primary? or is he a far right nut who pivoted to the left to appear moderate? The fact is that no-one will know until he wins and if he is that far right nut then it is too late.

Second, his major policies are either delusional or unenforceable. Mexico are not paying for a border wall and unless you stop all immigration you are not going to stop all Muslim immigration.

I could keep going but I am not going to convince any Trump supporters.

I will end, however, on the most annoying thing that comes from Trump supporters which is saying he is better than Hillary. Hillary is not someone that I like as a politician (far too right wing for me) and she has a shady past but at least I know what I am getting and it won't be a effed up if Trump enacts the extreme policies that he talked about especially in the primaries.

 

Re: Siegfried

"How does it serve those who don't own the land?" Land ownership is one place I’ll be pragmatic: it’s necessary for society to function, people owning land contributes to that.

"The problem is there's a limited supply. When you take some land by force, you're depriving everyone else of the right to use it (including the people you took it from, but also everyone else)."
Why should they have a right to use it? How are you defining rights? If someone in the past labored to acquire land, it's just that they should own the fruits of their labor. Conquering land obviously isn’t ideal, but in that situation, it was just how it worked, and it being sold/passed on according to the wishes of the owner, that’s what is ethical in that situation. If everyone has the right to use certain land, does that mean people have a right to break into my house? If not, what's the difference?

"Privatisation doesn't work, because there are public goods issues. With health, everyone benefits to some extent from a healthier population. With education, everyone benefits to some extent from having more educated and productive citizens. If you choose not to buy healthcare (including vaccinations, treatment for infectious diseases, etc.), then you spread diseases to everyone else, including for example infants who haven't yet received vaccinations. If you choose not to buy education, you're more likely to be unemployed and need support from other citizens. With infrastructure, you can make a private arrangement to finance it, but then you have to waste a lot of resources blocking access to anyone who isn't a member of the group that paid for it."
Good reason to donate to charity, not a reason why anyone should be legally obligated to sacrifice something of theirs for public good. Socialized education is one thing I will be pragmatic about, it promotes equality of opportunity, which will increase freedom. I don't want people to go without healthcare either, but I value personal autonomy above everything else.

"Public pensions solved a huge problem that used to exist. If you decide not to save when you work, then if you live to an age when you're no longer able or willing to work, you'll end up being in poverty when old. That happened to a lot of people before public pensions, and old people in poverty needed others to support them. Most mentally normal people won't let old people in their society die of starvation and exposure to elements, so without public pensions, are effectively forced to pay for the ones who decide not to save. By agreeing that everyone has to pay, you stop the problem of the responsible ones having to pay twice (once for themselves and again for the irresponsible ones)."
Deciding not to save while you work is extremely short-sighted and people who are irresponsible are inevitably going to face consequences for it. What matters with others paying for pensions is solely the voluntarism, and democracy is not consent to that: just because 51% of people agree to something (not exclusively pensions) doesn't mean that I do.

"A right to land requires politicians, bankers, lawyers, judges, police, military, etc. to work for you. They have to define laws and currency, record transactions, settle disputes, enforce settlements, etc. It also deprives others of using the land, for arbitrary reasons. The right to health requires doctors, nurses, researchers, etc. to work for you. The right to education requires teachers, professors, researchers, etc. to work for you. Both also deprive others of using the health/education resources. It's all pretty much the same."
I actually may have been unclear here. I specifically meant that if you acquire something legally, it violates your rights for it to be stolen from you--not particularly land, but the same basic concepts still apply to land. For example, if I build a chair, I put in that work, why should someone else be able to devalue it at any time? What entitlement does anyone have to it but me? All of those bankers and police officers and whatnot knew they would be enforcing this when they chose their profession. If they don't like it, they should be allowed to refuse to help me or quit their job. I'm obviously not entitled to a certain police officer arresting a thief, but I am entitled to not being stolen from and rule of law is necessary, regardless. The right to private ownership of objects justly acquired increases freedom (tied to ownership), being forced to pay for someone else's healthcare does not increase freedom.

"People working for you in the public sector, whether related to property rights or to other rights like health or education, aren't forced to work for you. You don't have a right to force them to do anything. They choose to work for you because you and other taxpayers have indirectly (through voting) decided to pay wages that are high enough to attract them. If people don't want to work for you, they work for private institutions or choose different careers. If voters don't offer high enough wages, they'll work for someone else."
I know they’re not forced. I'm talking specifically about taxpayers being forced to pay for things they may not want to. Democracy isn't consent when there are 300 million people in a country. Plenty will still be opposed and individual autonomy is what's really important, imo.

"The fact that property rights aren't meaningful unless people work to enforce them for you goes back to the point of the arbitariness of ownership of land. Land is owned by people because, at some point in the past, someone who was strongest took it by force from someone else. It eventually trickled down to the current owners, who bought it, inherited it or were given it by the state. People pay taxes (on property and other things) so that society doesn't revert to the previous state, where the strong took whatever they wanted and the weak had no rights in practice. Thanks to taxes and the state, we can buy and sell land instead of taking it by force."
I don't 100% understand what you're saying. That's precisely why land ownership is important. The state can be funded voluntarily. Most people are against no taxes, therefore most people would still pay taxes left to their own devices.

"If you want to avoid taxation, it's possible to, say, live on a boat in international waters. If you do that, though, you'll kind of be free-riding on taxpayers in the nearby countries, who pay for patrolling of waters to prevent piracy. To avoid free-riding, you could go to a lawless area where piracy exists. You'd have to make sure you have enough arms and ammunition to enforce your property rights against the pirates, though, because they don't recognise them. You could possibly form a voluntary associated with others to defend each other from pirates too. You'd have to agree how things are paid for etc. If you make an arrangement based on voluntary rather than mandatory contributions, all the research evidence suggests it will break down as soon as a few people decide not to contribute. That's why societies aren't generally organised around voluntary taxation in practice."

Are there really that many lawless areas for those who choose to live in them? I like the idea of factions inside a nation where there can be vastly different economic/political landscapes, but they aren't feasible right now. It’s fine if there being places with taxation like there currently is, or even Marxist societies if everyone agrees, but I wish people had more of a say in the society within they live, and while they don’t, individual autonomy should be valued. It shouldn't be this difficult for people to live freely.

 

I'm not a Trump supporter, but I see him as the lesser evil against Clinton.

On the first point, Trump has been non-racist and moderate/centre-left by US standards (centre-right by most European standards), with protectionism being the one major outlier, for his whole life. You can see this by reading and listening to old interviews or looking at his past support for, say, groups that help black Americans. Suddenly he decided to run for US president as a Republican and transformed into a right-wing lunatic. After winning the primaries, he started slowly shifting back to the centre, except on trade and border protection. It seems kind of obvious that his real views are the ones he always had until he started running for president. The risk is just how much he's willing to compromise them to repay right wingers, if they push him over the top.

On the second point, all Trump has to do to get Mexico to pay for his wall is withdraw from Nafta and impose tariffs on Mexican exports to the US. He could also quite easily ban immigration from 'high risk' countries, as he's talked about (after the hyperbole about banning all Muslims). Given that most people in those countries are extremely religious, conservative, sexist and homophobic, they shouldn't be allowed into western countries anyway. I mean, even 'moderate' Muslims think the Koran is the literal word of some supreme being, and it says that anyone who converts from Islam must be killed (along with gays and others). Nobody who believes that kind of crap can possibly function in a western society.

On the third point, with Clinton you know you'll be getting more wars and interventions (which is what I care about most, given that the after-shocks of the Bush/Clinton wars hit Europe more than the US). Trump is at least an isolationist. Maybe he'll carpet bomb Isis, but he's not going to continue the Clinton policy of initiating regime change all over the place and destabilising entire regions. The disastrous state of North Africa and the Middle East, and the spreading of the cancer of Islamic terrorism to Europe and the US, is the fault of Bush, Clinton and Obama. I don't think Obama likes wars and regime change, I think he was just too weak to stand up to Clinton and the other neocons. If you elect her, you're giving the neocons free reign to start more wars and interventions.

Finally, the idea of someone like Ted Cruz winning in four years time, with a Republican Congress behind him, should scare you a lot more than Trump. Trump played the part of a scary right wing fanatic during the Republican primaries. Cruz is the real thing. Electing a corrupt, dishonest, unpopular, inept warmonger like Clinton is the best way to give power to Cruz or someone equally scary in four years time.

 

Property rights are necessary, but it's not necessary to grant enforcement of property rights to people who happen to own land now, because someone took it by force at some point in the past and it trickled down to them. You could achieve the same thing under a feudal system, where an absolute monarch grants property rights to specific feudal lords, who then determine who's allowed to use it, with control passed down according to some hereditary system (e.g. primogeniture).

What if they labour to acquire the land from you, e.g. by hiring a private army to take it by force? Why should that grant them any right to it? Why should the fact that someone did that in the past grant you a right to it? Property rights come with obligations to the society that pays to enforce them. Unless society pays to enforce property rights, they're meaningless, just like a right to health or education is meaningless unless society pays to enforce them.

Why should it be charity? In a democracy, people choose to sacrifice some of their autonomy in exchange for protection of their rights (to property, health, education, etc.) by the state.

The way liberal democracy works is that people come together and agree on what fundamental rights are, write a constitution to protect those rights, then democratically establish laws consistent with them. There is no difference in principle between your belief that land ownership is a right (which I share) and my belief that healthcare is a right (which you don't share). There is no logical basis for the libertarian view that property ownership is a special right, different from other rights like health or education. Both require the power of the state to be meaningful, and the state requires resources to function. What constitutes fundamental rights is subjective. Reasonable people can disagree on what they are, so they have to be solved through democratic processes. Going with the majority view on what fundamental rights are isn't going to please everyone, but what is the alternative? If most people aren't libertarians, why should a libertarian minority be given the power to define fundamental rights?

You can say you have a right to ownership (of land or anything else), but without other people working for you to enforce that right, it is meaningless. The same goes for health. If you were a rich oligarch with a private army strong enough to protect your property from anyone else, you could say that being forced to pay to protect someone else's property doesn't increase your freedom. That would be true. Paying to protect someone else's property rights is fundamentally no different to paying to protect someone else's health rights. Participation in society entails surrendering some autonomy in exchage for protection of the rights that society chooses to protect (including property rights and rights to health, education, etc.).

Other than through democracy, how do you define what fundamental rights are?

Evidence from social experiments says the opposite. Most people are at first willing to pay, but in a large enough group, there is always a small minority of selfish people who refuse to pay. Most people care about fairness, so when they see that some people are taking benefits without paying, they get angry. Some will protest against (or 'punish') the ones who don't pay by refusing to pay themselves. Those protests increase the proportion who aren't paying, and the process continues, leading to a rapid collapse of the system. This issue has been extensively studied by sociologists, economists and others, and systems that rely on purely voluntary contributions inevitably collapse. That's arguably why all advanced societies in existence use mandatory rather than voluntary mechanisms.

I don't know, but it's pretty clear that most people don't want to live in that kind of society. The issue is probably clearer in Europe than in, say, the US. Europe still has a lot of relatively small countries, and the EU has been moving towards open internal borders since the mid-20th century. Now the trouble is that, if you have people who pay a lot of tax to create public goods in their countries, but then people from other countries (e.g. with lower taxes and fewer public goods) are allowed to freely migrate in, you end up with a lot of people free-riding on the ones who pay the most tax. You really can't have totally free movement within a country/bloc, including free access to public goods within a country (infrastructure, health, education, etc.), unless you harmonise everything (taxes, which public goods are provided, etc.). I support restoring limits on access to public goods, and some limits even on movement between countries, rather than trying to harmonise things across 500 million people.

So, you could allow autonomy within the US, but then you'd have to build walls around each of the autonomous areas and control movement in and out of them. Even then, ones who didn't pay tax would still be free-riding on the military costs of the others, which protect them from invasion. Once you start organising collective defence and arranging how to pay for it, you end up creating a state again, with the same requirements as always. If voluntary funding were sustainable, it could be tried, but all the evidence suggests that this new state would either move to mandatory financing or collapse, because the minority of free-riders not paying would anger the ones paying, so the ones paying would either leave or stop paying.