Bag Tax Dilemma

Neither A) nor B) are the right answer.

If you want a bag, and it's worth 5 cents to you, pay for the bag. If isn't worth that nickle to you, don't. We would drive ourselves nuts trying to act in ways that will change the fiscal status of a tax jurisdiction one nickle at a time. And the belief that it contributes to saving the planet by reducing the number of bags used is also not going to be changed by our actions. And our ethical purity isn't impugned because we pay a nickle extra in taxes to get the convience of a bag, and contribute to their tax coffers by an extra nickle.

We shouldn't give up our cars and ride bikes because it reduces fuel taxes, or make less money so we pay less income tax.  Taxes become part of the price we pay for somethings, even when the very idea of a given tax is irrational, immoral, and annoying.  We always have to measure what we want against the actual (tax included) cost.

It would all be different if there were a reasonable way to protest taxes on bags, or that went beyond just the bag issue, and was actually effective, but there isn't - other than electing better candidate and speaking out, letting people know that this just more theft by politicians who want to give our money to their cronies and to special interests to stay elected and to failed programs that haven't worked in the past and won't in the future.

Robert,

I'm surprised by the disdain in your response. Minimizing state control over productive efforts was a major theme of both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. 

Not buying a bag does not minimize state control over productive efforts.   If everyone in that jurisdiction quit buying bags it wouldn't minimize state control over production.  It would encourage the state to raise revenues elsewhere, bag manufactures would be hurt, and people would have to find otherways to carry their goods home.

I argued for attacking the source of state control: changing the elected politicians, and educating the voters who elected them.  Tell me how that is disdain?

Maybe you don't understand the cause of state control, or the concept of self-interest.  

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Let me know how you do carrying your things home without the bags, or how you manage to salve your wounded sense of duty to the major themes of both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead should you join the devil by paying your nickle.  

And let me know how much the world changes as a result of your bag campaign - I mean this wasn't just you wagging your tongue in an insincere fashion was it?

And let me know when you've taken to riding a bicycle instead of driving you car, everywhere possible, just to diminsh the fuel taxes you'd otherwise pay. And how you voluntarily reduce any income you'd have to pay more to the IRS for, where possible.   Your argument would make one think it a case of utter disdain towards the major themes of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead to be aiding the goverment by helping the government in those ways. 

By the way, let me ask this since we are on the topic of helping the government.  Aren't you in a bit of a quandry?  You work for the government so you are an expense that the rest of us tax payers are stuck with.  Shouldn't you be looking for a job in the private sector where you add to our nation's productivity instead of diminishing it?  You are quibbling about our nickles while taking home ten or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We actually NEED the military it is one of the only Government bodies that is moral in the sense that ifff for example the USA started shifting back towards the founding principals of the nation and minimized government following a libertarian free market system allowing us to actually LIVE the American dream as it was intended we would still need a strong military to protect its citizens from foriegn regimes that are antithetical to freedom.

NSA spying on its own citizens on the other hand, not so much...

Sadly the way things are going we will all soon be drinking "Victory Gin" andddd wearing Vonnegut style weights around our necks to limit tall poppy syndrome.

Jules:

You find it odd at all, when folks are discussing 'WPA job style programs' extended welfare, public pension seeking slackers that some would point at the folks at the legitimate  pointy end of the outward facing  stick and yet grant a pass to the weasels sucking down G&Ts at Georgetown bistros inside the gauntlet of corruption that is the CronyFest on the Potomac while those other's bleed for their freedom?

I think you can detect the 'loathing' for that conservative military; the one that would, guaranteed, turn any overt command order to confiscate arms from an armed to the teeth America into history's biggest fragging.   Sue thing, ask all the captains and majors if they would accept such an order before politically shaping the officer corps via promotions(this has been going on under the Obama regime.)

Robert,

The military is under civilian command. That's the way it is supposed to be.   I'd expect the military to follow orders up until those orders went too far and became too obvious a violation of the constitution.

It is strange to be blaming the military and not those who give them their marching orders, and not those who voted their budgets, and not those who are taking government salaries for something other than bearing arms or wearing a badge.  I really have to wonder about anyone who says being in the military is just some kind of "welfare for conservatives."  

Steve - I am hardly the first person to suggest the military is...

Steve:

It's true; he's indistinguishable from many like him; it apparently gives him great comfort.   Sort of like what you would expect from someone with an abject fealty to their herd mentality genes.   The first and last response is to look left, look right, make sure they are not alone, and blow in the wind caused by the stampede of others.

This fealty to group think/mob appeal gets high marks in some herds.   

Think of zebras.

Maybe a poll of some kind is forthcoming?

regards,

Fred

Robert,

I am hardly the first person to suggest the military is Republican welfare, conservative welfare, or some variant on that theme.

And because it has been said by others that makes it right?  Let's put that in the category of 'non-argument.'

What I'm calling "non-arguments" are assertions that don't address what was actually being argued or does so but with badly flawed logic - the kind of flaws that suggest a person only cares about winning and not at all about what might be true.  Most of the points you made initially aren't particularly critical in the world of politics or Objectivist thought, but the insistence you have on arguing points that you should abandon and doing so with non-arguments is what I keep seeing and what I keep responding to.

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It's an open secret that most people in the military today don't do much fighting, if any...

So, we shouldn't have anyone in uniform unless they are fighting? Or maybe we should have a percentage, like 90% of the people in uniform have to be dodging bullets, or firing guns in live fire fights at least one day out of each month... otherwise we need to reduce the size of the force?  No one said that the current head-count or assignments are what they should be - that's not the argument.  And calling something an "open secret" doesn't add anything to this non-argument.

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...and the "lifers" like my old friend are living very handsomely on government pay and benefits with practically everything free or subsidized.

People who manage responsible positions should be paid well. If they are in charge of very large, or expensive, or complex structures, say a bomber wing, or a nuclear submarine, or air craft carrier, would it make sense to not pay them well?  I don't begrudge anyone an attractive compensation package if it is determined by a free market, or it is needed to provide quality people for military defense.  And I'm sure that there are many people who receive a government salary that don't deserve it, but that doesn't make all the people in the military welfare recipients.  Another non-argument.

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...waving away any suggestion of a problem with a "we need a military" catch-all rationalization - as if the fact that we need "a military" justifies any and all military spending and out-of-control headcount.

No one here has claimed there are no problems. No one here has claimed that all military spending is proper or justified. No one here is claiming that the current headcount is where it should be. Another non-argument.

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I don't agree with your suggestion that only leadership is responsible for the acts of an organization.

You like to make up an argument, put it my mouth even though it wasn't anything I said, then argue against it.  I said that our military is under civilian control, unlike, say, Egypt.  So, your rant about the "Nuremberg Defense" is yet another non-argument.

What I argued against was saying that being in the military was like being on welfare - a Republican or Conservative form of welfare. And I said that the military was a proper activity for government. You argue as if the Iraq war should be blamed on every enlisted man, every officer, and treat them, one and all, as welfare recipients. Instead of saying that you mis-spoke or that you shouldn't have phrased it that way, or in any fashion admit to an error, you seem to see how high you can pile non-arguments.

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I prefer to hold everyone responsible for their own actions...

But clearly that doesn't extend to you admitting when you've made a bad argument.  And, really, how can a someone who takes a government paycheck that will never involve dodging bullets be calling members of the military welfare recipients because not all of them will be in a fire-fight?  And no one has argued that people shouldn't be held responsible for their own actions.  Following lawful orders in the military is being responsible for one's actions.  Another non-argument.

And because it has been said by others that makes it right?  Let's put that in the category of 'non-argument.'

My statement in its original context wasn't an appeal to popularity, and your attempt to present it as such is dishonest. It was in direct response to you calling my argument "strange" and then saying you "have to wonder about anyone" who makes my argument, like it's out of left field and not the common libertarian critique of military excess that it is.

So, we shouldn't have anyone in uniform unless they are fighting?

What was it you said about putting arguments in people's mouths? My statement was counter to Fred's categorical assertion that the military are bleeding for my freedoms and your statement that those in the military are bearing arms. Most of them, in fact, are not bleeding, in combat, or bearing arms at all.

Or maybe we should have a percentage, like 90% of the people in uniform have to be dodging bullets, or firing guns in live fire fights at least one day out of each month... otherwise we need to reduce the size of the force?

Nobody is saying it should be reduced to a percentage - that is totally dishonest of you. But it's not ludicrous to suggest that a standing army should be scaled back when there isn't as much of a combat need and it isn't as necessary to national defense. That's only rational.

People who manage responsible positions should be paid well. If they are in charge of very large, or expensive, or complex structures, say a bomber wing, or a nuclear submarine, or air craft carrier, would it make sense to not pay them well?

I'm not talking about top military brass. I'm talking about run-of-the-mill military officers.

I don't begrudge anyone an attractive compensation package if it ... is needed to provide quality people for military defense.

It isn't needed for the vast majority. Our homeland is not at risk and you've acknowledged we have too many people in our military (read: no recruitment problem, and many of them unnecessary).

No one here has claimed that all military spending is proper or justified.

Maybe not, but why else make statements like "we need a military for defense" when I'm specifically arguing against excessive headcount and compensation? It's an asinine thing to point out unless you are trying to use it as a catch-all rationalization for the current size and compensation structure of the  military, which is all I've ever argued against.

You argue as if the Iraq war should be blamed on every enlisted man, every officer, and treat them, one and all, as welfare recipients.

They are in part responsible, yes. You're leaving out the key words "in part," which I used very deliberately. If you join the military and participate in a war, yes, you are in-part responsible for the war. I never said they were solely responsible. 

Oh I read your rationalization for it.  How very noble of you king Baratheon in court acting like the spider so as to prevent Littlefinger from growing too strong!  We all await the great changes you enact when you become a hiring manager!!!

Are you then going to work on repealing anti trust laws, minimum wage laws, how about abolishing the IRS?

(Edited by Jules Troy on 3/15, 7:25pm)

http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/2014/03/04/first-libertarian-candidate-to-run-in-mcmurray

I hope this guy wins!