This couldn’t be further from the truth. Just because someone is not being directly taxed from a paycheck or through a sales tax (which poor people often are both, depending on their locality [even if they are taxed on income and get a tax return, the time-value of that money is lost]) does not mean that indirect taxes do not exist. There’s another thread going on about poverty in ghettos where a few secondary and tertiary taxes and injustices occur, but the largest perpetrator comes down to dilution of purchasing power through fiat currency and fractional reserve banking. Some argue that, yes, “2.5%” inflation, or whatever some rubber-stamper declares to be the rate of inflation, is reasonable year after year. This is horrific as it is not obvious to the most individuals and is not taught in any public or private school that I know of. This hidden tax destroys the lower and middle classes while the wealthy remain relatively unscathed; consider not only the few dollars that a poor or middle class person has to use to choose their lifestyle and compound a 2.5% (ha) deduction annually. Now, add in the price inflation that occurs as producers and businesses add to keep up with said inflation and compound it by their industries relying on other industries whose prices are increasing. The margin grows dramatically. I hope this helps your argument.
I discovered the truth of Austran Econ when I started questioning the world around me; why does minimum wage have to constantly be adjusted after over 50 years of having it “helping the poor”? Why was a soda from a vending machine $0.25 when I was a kid and now its $1.50 in some places? Why are some people still poor in our country despite millions of dollars going directly to their aid? Moreover, why are even many of the poorest here better off than 98% of humanity that has ever lived? Perhaps just getting someone to question such ideas will help. What I am getting at is this; there may be hope for your parents to shake off the force-fed generalities of a mediocre press and years of petty two party participation, but I would not count on it. The wonder and idealism of youth combined with intellect and reason will usually find the right path. I’m in my early twenties and have discussed these issues to a logical conclusion with many of my elders, whom I love dearly, but demolish their beliefs in propagandic lies and they do not change their actions (rhetoric, maybe, but that would be too much like the current political system). They cannot refute the truth but choose to ignore it and resort to Marxian tactics of ad hominem, even something as simple as “you’re just an idealist.” The best way to instill knowledge is through persuasive discussion, especially in younger individuals. Even if you plant but a seed of wonder in their mind, perhaps one day they will want to know more.
As one of the great Romantics wrote, “all the forces in the world are not as powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
I am glad to know there are others like me out there and welcome all to the greatest study of peace and prosperity. Continue your quest for truth. As always, I would appreciate more elaboration and improvement on my comments from others. Plus, I apologize for ranting, but it has been festering.
There’s a lot of violence in Washington DC, NYC, LA, etc, and we don’t have anarchy.
Actually, there’s more, especially in light of Sarbannes-Oxley, which makes stock companies have their earnings statements certified and all that nonsense.
Of “overpopulation”, as it were, yes. There’s a reason why there’s a saying “close enough for government work”.
Isn’t it his money to begin with? Why should the rules change just because a person is rich?
Let your father know that the alternative is for that rule to be applied to him, so he must be coerced to pay for every starving person possible.
So long as the government does not outlaw private provision of them, there is no problem. If it does, there is a problem: namely, that it has set up for itself a monopoly. Either way, it has no argument.
No, these things are good for everyone. Without them, the mises.org website would be non-existant, you could not have utilities, there would be no roads, etc. etc.
Obama will not harm everyone. His policies will help the poor. Sure, they may harm the rich, but the rich just hoard their money.
</ my parent’s nonsense>
More Nonsense:
“We need to do the big bailout! Otherwise, everyone will suffer!”
This is a very loaded proposition. (What’s a public good anyway?) Even if the state does provide public goods why can they not be provided by other (non-violent) means? Why should they be provided at all (is it the end of the world as we know it if they aren’t)? Most importantly, how does it imply that one cannot refuse government? Externalities? Pffft!
In the early stages of my conversion to libertarianism, while I realized, or was slightly cognizant of the fact, that the state’s taking the property of another without consent is ethically wrong (and hence welfare is illegitimate), it was very unintuitive to me. Now, unfortunately, while it’s perfectly clear to me, I have no memory of how I acquired intuition for it, so I’m somewhat at a loss for how to explain it so socialists get it.
Statists in general always try to justify some state action by saying it is necessary (whatever that means), from which they implicitly conclude that plundering some people is permissible. Of course, if one assumes that plunder is not permissible (as any civilized person does), by contraposition of the statists’ own principle it follows that the state’s action is not necessary at all. [:O]
This notion is absurd on its face; can one really contend that the only reason people are civil toward each other or are even capable of congregation is because they have the state watching over them? Introspection alone should be enough to refute this idea.
Here’s a quote from Bastiat: “Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.”
He’s a very emotive man, not a bad thing mind you, just a weakness that is exploited. Individuals who are “rational” become subject to their own demons. Ask him about the suffering of the taxed poor, the small businessmen, the people forced to live in ghetto’s due to zoning laws. Whatever you do, DON’T try and call his arguements non sequir or anything like that, try and work “through” their notions, not presenting your own. I did and it made the arguement a lot less frictionless.
sry, last part didn’t make any sense. I was saying that I had called an arguement that was emotional made by someone else, the “if you don’t like it here you can leave” and I challenged it as irrelevent, this increased the heat of the arguement and made it far less productive.