Are libertarians our enemies?

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Some people think they can win over all us marijuana users, by offering 'legalization' as if we'd be ok with anything else under the sun so long as pot is legal.......well jesus, we're not all that stupid.

Oh and my idea I came in this thread to express in the first place...how about they get rid of income tax? and keep the sales tax and/or potentially raise it some to make up for the money lost in getting rid of income tax. Then whenever taxes are paid the person 'chooses' to because its included in the price of merchandise...then would there be less complaining about the fact that welfare is paid for by taxes? If one does not want to contribute they can opt out and not buy things....seems like a good plan.

I love that plan...I was actually going to say exactly what you said here, lol. Why not pay taxes upfront...sure, it would raise the price of goods, but in the end you would essentially be paying the same amount of taxes for everything and it would probably be a huge incentive for people to buy less crap
I'd rather carry a five pound weight on my back every day than a 1825 lb weight every year.

I definately think librarians are our enemies-- lot's of autistics like to read and all librarians do is hand out late fines.

lol I feel like this thread needed that.

Haha...thanks for the lightheartedness. I had high hopes for this thread last week then it seemed people got vicious and borderline rabid and so I left....we can never come to a helpful conclusion if we continue to take things personally and attack others' characters...

Actually, I would think we'd want people to buy more things, as this is the engine of the economy. And that is best accomplished if people have money in their pockets; hence, either by cheaply priced goods and services, taxation on only those who can comfortably afford it, raising wages, or all of the above.

They're not OK with the state banning pot and gay marriage but they're OK with employers discriminating for any reason, including using pot and being gay. They said so on Penn and Teller.

Seriously? I didn't know that. I don't know many libertarians but in ways I see myself as a libertarian and that's f**ked up...the way I see it, real discrimination is when the government should intervene (some people have a "persecution complex", but being a female with disabling issues, I know discrimination is real).

I'll have to watch that episode; I love Penn and Teller

Yeah, the f**ked up thing is they actually favour legal pot usage (for other people, not themselves) and they think discriminating against gays is a bad thing to do, then they say because they're libertarians that means it's OK for people to disagree with them, therefor they would allow any individual or private club to discriminate against them (they would dislike such discrimination and call them ***holes but they would still not want it to be illegal). In other words, they dislike but tolerate discrimination by any club or employer so long as they're a private business because they think freedom to be a bigot is the highest morality.

If you want to watch Penn and Teller, I would recommend starting with their episode on boyscouts. I watched it and for most of the episode I agreed with their sentiment that it was wrong for the boyscouts to discriminate against gays and atheists. Then they said it was wrong because the boyscouts get free usage of government land and that means the government is condoning homophobia and possibly violating the separation between church and state. They said of the boyscouts weren't assisted by the government they would still dislike their practice of discrimination but not want to see it banned.

I agree that government involvement makes it even more immoral but I disagree with the notion that it wouldn't be immoral without government help. They say no laws should be passed prohibiting private organizations from discriminating, however, such laws have already been passed. For example, it's illegal for a restaurant to ban all black people. Other such laws could be passed but not yet because the homophobes and atheist-haters still have some political influence whereas nowadays no one takes the racists seriously.

It depends on the Libertarian I'm speaking with.

Some of them have some pretty good ideas. As I've stated elsewhere, I believe in mixed economies, so I pick and choose thoughts from various ideologies I suspect have merit.

Your mileage may vary.

I do the same (pick ideas from different ideologies). I don't like when people lable an entire ideology as bad.
The socialists and communists I've known were selfish, lazy, and didn't give a hoot about anyone other than themselves--they just wanted their welfare check and an easy life.
But I won't label entire ideologies as bad just because I don't like the people I associate those ideologies with.

Precisely.

well people aren't going to not buy things...to avoid taxes most likely, since its less convenient, but then people couldn't complain about a percentage being taken out of their paycheck which might help certain tensions.

People avoid sales tax all the time by buying everything on the internet...

Sales taxes are extremely regressive and they do tend to be a drag on the economy and overburden the poor.

We've been using proportional tax rates, based on wealth, for thousands of years (google servian constitution).

It's a long established principle that those who benefit most from society owe the most back to society.

If you don't want to pay your fair share in taxes you should do the ethical thing and MOVE to a country that doesn't collect taxes.

There are several to choose from in Africa, I think....