Two
Good GE roll, they let you go, no difficulty
Neutral to mildly bad, they put you in a holding cell, no difficultly.
Mildly to moderately bad, they put you in the Arizona. I didn't know that was going to sink. No difficulty.
Exceptionally bad, it could become difficult, but that's unlikely.
After the place is destroyed, do you really think anyone left alive is going to care about some smartaleck trespasser who got lost on an army base?
Picking the player up makes non-involvement much more easy. Tell them where they are, see how hard they try to get off the base. THEN you see how hard they will work to stay uninvolved.
After the place is destroyed, do you really think anyone left alive is going to care about some smartaleck trespasser who got lost on an army base?
Yes. They would care a lot. They would actually care more than they did before.
All you are to them at that point is someone that got lost. They have no reason whatsoever to suspect that you had anything to do with what happened. Your appearance right before the bombing was a complete coincidence. You were an annoyance. Now you're nothing. They've got bigger problems to deal with than some guy who got lost on the beach.
Okay, you seem to not be getting why people get arrested for trespassing on a military base. They're pretty hard to enter unknowingly, so "getting lost" seems more like an incredibly bad attempt at a bluff. They would most likely presume you'd come to sabatoge the base or scout targets prior to the attack.
OK, so it would be up to a GE roll to decide. Fact remains. You sat in a holding cell for 2 days and didn't warn them. There's no difficulty in sitting in a holding cell for 2 days.
The MP opening is perfect if the player is absolutely certain to warn them. It would make non-involvement way too easy. The only thing it does as far as making non-involvement difficult is perhaps increase the temptation to warn them. If the player was tempted to warn them, they would head towards the base on their own. If they're sitting in a holding cell, they just have to keep their mouth shut. I could do that standing on my head.
Barring an exceptionally bad GE roll, that's exactly what would happen and you know it.
Let's be clear about this: you were not in the hospital simply "because of an exceptionally bad GE roll". That GE roll only existed because you botched, and Adam used the GE roll to determine the extent of your injuries following a multi-step process which started with determining that you botched, then identifying that the outcome of the botch was that the jeep was going to crash and roll with you cuffed in the rear, and only then giving you the chance that you might not be hurt too badly by relying on a GE roll for extent of injuries. You put yourself in the hospital.
As to whether you would otherwise have spent two days in a holding cell, that's more than I know. You might have been questioned and released.
If I had gotten to the base in one piece, I would have said "Unless you have something specific in mind for the next two days, you might as well skip ahead to the attack, cuz I ain't gonna tell them a damn thing." WHAT'S THE DIFFICULTY IN THAT?
Of course, depending on your answers to the initial questions, you might have been put under more severe questioning. I'm not certain whether World War II Army Intelligence used truth serum or torture, but if they managed to get the truth from you they would not have believed it, which would have led them to believe that you were some sort of spy trained to give nonsensical answers under intense questioning.
And I would not have "skipped ahead". I would have played out the interim, which probably would have included at least sleep deprivation if your answers made them suspicious.
Picking the player up makes non-involvement much more easy.
This seems to undermine your entire position. They picked you up. You told. You now say that it would be easy not to be involved if they picked you up, but you were unable not to be involved when that's what they did.
John, I'm thinking that the alternatives are to put you in the base and have you found versus put you outside the base and let you know where you are. If those are the only two alternatives, then putting you outside the base makes it easy to be uninvolved and hard to be involved--you can walk away and no one will notice. Putting you in the base and having someone notice you makes it hard for you to be uninvolved, because at that point you have to be careful and clever to find a way not to have any impact on events.
So I think you've sunk your own argument.
Your appearance right before the bombing was a complete coincidence.
Do you really think that either the base commander or the chief intelligence officer is going to believe that the appearance of an unknown person carrying unidentified advanced weapons and equipment two days before a bombing was just a coincidence? They already have enough questions, and now they've got some of their answers: which of these pieces of equipment guided the Japanese planes into our harbor? How did you communicate with the Japanese fleet without being detected? No, you may well be in very serious trouble now.
The MP opening is perfect if the player is absolutely certain to warn them.
No, it's only "perfect" for such a player if the referee doesn't want to make the game interesting. Pretty dull if we pick you up and bring you in for questioning, and you can tell them right away that there's a Japanese fleet on the way. Much more challenging if you're outside the base and you have to find a way to get inside and persuade someone to listen to yet another nutcase who thinks he knows something about the future.
Putting the non-involvement player outside the base makes non-involvement too easy. You can walk away, and no one will ever know you were there. If I want to make non-involvement difficult, I have to trap you in the situation in a way that requires you to extricate yourself without doing any damage to it.
Of course, if we allow the questioners to beat you, as someone suggested would be standard operating procedure for a suspected spy, the referee rolls a difficult will power check and says, "You have failed your will power check and are now going to tell them something, tell me what you think you would tell them and persuade me that that's so." What do you say then? Do you find a way to tell the truth without telling anything that matters, and get them to believe you without without any proof? Or do you save yourself another beating by becoming involved?
Putting the non-involvement player in the situation in which he is forced into custody immediately is the only way to test whether he would be involved or not. I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner.
--M. J. Young
I don't think you understood anything I said. I'll try to type it more slowly this time.
John, I'm thinking that the alternatives are to put you in the base and have you found versus put you outside the base and let you know where you are.
What I'm saying is put me INSIDE the base and let me know where I am, with no other influences. If I want to warn them, I have to find a way to do it. If I don't, I have to escape unnoticed or fight my way out. At no point did I suggest putting me completely outside the compound. That would make non-involvement too easy. Put me inside the compound. Instead of an MP, I hear a PA announcement telling me where and when I am. "OK, I'm inside the Pearl Harbor compound 2 days before the attack. Do I want to warn them or leave?" If the player wants to warn them, they still have to use effort to do so. If they don't, they have to escape. It would make an interesting story either way. Put them inside the base and let them know where they are. I'd have to escape unnoticed or fight my way out.
Putting the non-involvement player in the situation in which he is forced into custody immediately is the only way to test whether he would be involved or not. I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner.
I'm glad you finally admit that I was forced into custody. I wish you had done it sooner, but I'm glad you finally came to your senses. Better late than never. That's not the ONLY way. It's one way. Put them inside the compound. Let them fight their way out. THAT would be a much more effective strategy.
That statement is showing extreme close-mindedness. You didn't read or comprehend a word I said, and just went with your own notions. Put the non-involvement player INSIDE the compound, tell them where they are, and make it difficult for them to escape. But I am glad that you at least admit that I was forced into the story. That means a lot to me.
Two
No, it's only "perfect" for such a player if the referee doesn't want to make the game interesting. Pretty dull if we pick you up and bring you in for questioning, and you can tell them right away that there's a Japanese fleet on the way.
You thought that's what I was going to do. If I had gotten there and warned them right off the bat, that would have been pretty dull, wouldn't it? This MP opening is losing credibility left and right.
Let's be clear about this: you were not in the hospital simply "because of an exceptionally bad GE roll".
I'm well aware of that you fool. Let ME be clear. I was of course speaking of normal circumstances. I get to the base. I'm going to say "I'm not answering any questions until I speak to an attorney." It's a peaceful time, they have no reason to think anything is wrong, and you're choosing to follow your Constitutional rights. Nothing for them to worry about. Only an exceptionally bad GE roll will mean anything worse than being held in a cell for a few days. I was speaking ideal circumstances. A "normal person" running through.
Picking the player up makes non-involvement much more easy.
This seems to undermine your entire position. They picked you up. You told. You now say that it would be easy not to be involved if they picked you up, but you were unable not to be involved when that's what they did.
No, you just misunderstood my position. I am, again, talking about an ideal run through. A "Normal Person" not me. The person who plays nice, gets to the base, and everything is fine. Now they're sitting in a holding cell exercising their Constitutional rights. They're going to sit there for 2 days. Sleep deprivation? You're joking, right? Aren't there laws against things like that? Cruel and unusual punishment. You're a trespasser. Nothing more. They don't torture people for trespassing. You were picked up for trespassing. You're not a suspected spy. Besides, you're not talking either. You are just going to sit in a holding cell and be detained. That is, barring an exceptionally bad GE roll. What's difficult about that?
(Doing Therapy)
There is no such thing as "just a trespasser" on a military base.
MJ said you were forced into custody, not forced into the story.
That being said you have insulted MJ a number of times in the last couple of posts, the last one calling him a fool, the previous one calling him close-minded and implying he's slow at picking things up. These are all obviously false. If they were meant as jokes they failed. If they weren't you're a moron.
Either way, you have lost all respect from me, and I'm assuming probably a number of other people if they even had any for you to this point. Your points are a waste of time and seem more as bait so you can insult a few more people who have shown you kindness than they are to resolve any intelligent conversation.
MJ said you were forced into custody, not forced into the story.
What's the difference?
That being said you have insulted MJ a number of times in the last couple of posts, the last one calling him a fool, the previous one calling him close-minded and implying he's slow at picking things up. These are all obviously false. If they were meant as jokes they failed. If they weren't you're a moron.
He said that it was the "only" way to do something. There's no such thing as "only" one way to do something. If saying there's "only" one way to do something ISN'T being close-minded, then what the hell is it?
Yeah, I called him a fool. Sorry. I thought I was being clear enough that you would understand.
Typing slowly, same thing.
(Doing Therapy)
Two
And for the record, I am NOT arguing or complaining about my run through any longer. This is random chat about different ways to open a world. The pros and cons of it. I gave up arguing about that a long time ago. I think MJ is being closed-minded, which is a shock to me. There's always a better way to do something, and just because you've been doing it the same way for 30 years doesn't necessarily mean you're doing it correctly.
(Doing Therapy)
I'm glad you finally admit that I was forced into custody.
Duh. Of course you were. You weren't forced to talk. you weren't forced to TK the MP's head. The idea of roleplaying is it is an INTERACTIVE story. You agree to control one predefined character, and the referee agrees to write up a believable world and sequence of events for you to react to as that character. So sure, maybe the MP opening torqued you off-but has it happened again? No. Everyone knows now that "John despises all authority but his own, and quickly turns to bad things when given authority." Therefore, we can now write stories that cater to this viewpoint, such as utilizing people in a position of authority who directly interfere with your freedom and everyone else's, and see if you stop them. Or giving you the opportunity to have authority-and then you must contend with those who would oppose you having this authority, or who desire it for themselves. Or any other idea that creates an interesting story when you react with your unique anti-hero/grey villain outlook.
That statement is showing extreme close-mindedness...I'm well aware of that you fool.
*laughs raucously at the absurdity of these statements*
Close-minded=not ready to receive new ideas
Who exactly do we know here who is like that? Whe here endlessly disagrees with everything people say in an inflammatory way, refusing to see the viewpoint of others and then insulting those who see things differently?
Not MJ.
Close-minded=not ready to receive new ideas
Who exactly do we know here who is like that? Whe here endlessly disagrees with everything people say in an inflammatory way, refusing to see the viewpoint of others and then insulting those who see things differently?
Not MJ.
On the contrary. I've changed my viewpoint several times, where he has always insisted that the opening of the MP was correct for me, and now the "only way". He's outright refused to explore the possibility that there could be a better way. MJ is very closed-minded.
(Doing Therapy)
By my reckoning, you are the one who refuses to see that the MP opening ALREADY DID exactly what it was supposed to do. Further, he isn't refusing to explore other options because there "is absolutely no better way", he is refusing because he is far too busy to do hypotheticals on "how John might react to different ways of starting one scenario of one game from years ago".
By my reckoning, you are the one who refuses to see that the MP opening ALREADY DID exactly what it was supposed to do.
No, I do see that. What I'm saying is that there is a better way. Need I remind you that the only reason it showed you that is because I didn't play nice? If I hadn't pulsed his head, you would think I was dedicated. The exact opposite purpose would be served as I sat in a holding cell and waited.
Further, he isn't refusing to explore other options because there "is absolutely no better way", he is refusing because he is far too busy to do hypotheticals on "how John might react to different ways of starting one scenario of one game from years ago".
So that scenario, or one like it, will never again be run for any player by any referee? The NEXT player couldn't get a different opening because of what was learned from me? He did say it was the "Only Way". That definitely a closed-minded attitude.
I don't think you understand Brock. This isn't about me anymore. I HAVE changed my viewpoint. I'm changing it before your very eyes. Take what you learned from me, and use that information to better run players in the future. This is no longer about me. This is about every player who will ever face an authority figure as the opening to a game world. I've changed my viewpoint before your eyes.
(Doing Therapy)
What I'm saying is put me INSIDE the base and let me know where I am, with no other influences. If I want to warn them, I have to find a way to do it. If I don't, I have to escape unnoticed or fight my way out.
No, John, you're missing the point again.
If you appear to be the kind of person who wants to save worlds, we put you somewhere where it will be a challenge for you to do so.
That is not you. You were making statements to the effect that you thought versers should never interfere with events in any universe. If we want to test whether you are sincere in this position, what we have to do is make it as difficult as possible for you not to become involved.
My initial assessment was flawed, because if I were dropped outside the base at Pearl Harbor I would be attempting to find a way to warn them without losing all credibility (time travelers and dimensional travelers tend to be viewed as crazy in most universes). I thus assumed that nearly anyone would wish to do so. So I'm pleased that I did not run the game, because Adam was right: if you are trying to stay out of it, we have to make it as tough for you to do so as possible, and that means bringing you into custody so that you have hard choices to make and a lot of explaining to do.
Non-involvement philosophy is like the Prime Directive. So The Enterprise orbits a planet, and Data says that he finds signs of an early industrial society in which steam power has been developed, and Picard says that according to the Prime Directive they will not interfere with the development of such a culture, log it for Star Fleet to watch over the next century or so and set course for the next star system. That was easy.
So The Federation has been contacted by a culture that has just developed warp travel, but still has some primitive cultural concepts. The Enterprise brings a delegation to them, but Tasha Yar commits some ritually inappropriate act--being a woman brandishing a weapon--for which the penalty is being beaten to death. Picard now faces the hard choice: does he interfere with their culture in violation of the Prime Directive, or does he let them painfully execute his security chief?
The Prime Directive only matters when not interfering will cost us something. Non-involvement only matters when all the pressures are for you to become involved.
You're on the base, but you can make the choice to leave fairly easily? That's a neutral starting point--the kind of opening I'd use if I had no idea whether the player character would get involved and really didn't care. If I want to know whether you are genuinely anti-involvement, I have to attempt to push you into a corner where you either have to become involved or die fighting against it.
MJ said you were forced into custody, not forced into the story.What's the difference?
I think Brock nailed this in one. Being in custody is not being involved. It is being given a front row seat from which to observe. Non-involvement players are generally observers--they want to see what is happening without tampering with it in any way.
Now they're sitting in a holding cell exercising their Constitutional rights. They're going to sit there for 2 days. Sleep deprivation? You're joking, right? Aren't there laws against things like that? Cruel and unusual punishment.
Well, you should get your history straight. It wasn't until a lot of Supreme Court rulings of the 1960s that those rights worked the way they do now. Sure, you had the right not to answer questions without the presence of counsel; but that did not mean that invoking your right to counsel prevented them from asking questions. They could keep you up for days, give you minimal food and water, and tell you that if you'd like to call your attorney you can use the pay phone in the hall--after they've already taken your wallet and all your pocket change. This is particularly so with military confinement, which still does not follow exactly the same rules as civilian confinement. You have the right not to speak, but prior to those 1960s cases all that meant was that you did not have to answer them when they pounded you with questions, kept you awake through their interrogator shift changes, and kept you secluded. All that right meant was that they could not charge with with the crime of refusing to answer (which they could under the rules of the Star Chamber in British courts).
And cruel and unusual punishment only means that you can't be sentenced to torture. It does not have anything to do with how you are treated prior to being charged or convicted.
So that scenario, or one like it, will never again be run for any player by any referee? The NEXT player couldn't get a different opening because of what was learned from me? He did say it was the "Only Way". That definitely a closed-minded attitude.
Au contraire, mon ami, were I to run a Pearl Harbor scenario for some random player I would almost certainly put them in the town outside the base, and make it difficult for them to persuade anyone that the attack was coming--because most random players would need that starting point.
But I wanted to run Pearl Harbor specifically to test your devotion to your claimed non-involvement policy, and were I to run it again for that purpose, I would most certainly arrest and detain the target verser, and question him thoroughly as to why he was there, and why he was so eager to leave. I'd give him a front row seat for the disaster.
It's not that Pearl Harbor can only be run this way. It's that Pearl Harbor as a test of a devotion to non-involvement can only be run this way.
--M. J. Young
When it comes to being imprisoned, there's the law, there's the way things actually work, and then there's the way things work for suspected spies on a major military base. There are laws regarding the treatment of military prisoners, most of which either explicitly or implicitly do not apply to spies. Prior to the attack, it's narrowly possible you would just sit in a holding cell. After the attack, not so much.
The other thing to remember is that you quite possibly ended up farther inside the perimeter than people would go by accident. I've only been to Norfolk, but we had to pass through a gatehouse in a rather tall brick wall and present identification. I'm not sure what Pearl had, but it wouldn't be something easy to miss.
Y'know, we could argue about politics if you wanted a big pointless brawl. I could state that McCarthy's prime problem was his personality, but that he was right. And that Obama is probably hiding something on his birth certificate. And that the Stimulus aka the Porkulus was harmful in the short and longterm. And that Lefties hate logic and reason....all positions I can make a decent or semi-decent arguement for.....and you could allege that Communism is good, its just not been done right yet.
MJ said you were forced into custody, not forced into the story.
What's the difference?
I think Brock nailed this in one.
That was Glantri, not me. I agreed with him, but I was the one that said "duh. Of course you were forced into the story. You weren't forced to TK pulse his head, you weren't forced to talk...roleplaying is part referee world building and part seeing what YOU, the player, does with it." or something to that effect.
I can't draw it, but here's an idea for a political cartoon...
Room full of lobbyists, all dressed and attending a cocktail party. Note a few caricatures of BS, and Ted Turner, Governent Motors execs, and Wall Street fatcats, and the Envirobillionairre Pope himself, Al Gore.
See small concerned citizen at a distance watching this, talking to staffer.
"I thought your boss was going to be a breath of fresh wind. But he's just like the same old."
"Not quite." Says the small staffer figure also watching lobbyists who then turns to his now arriving boss, the new senator from ...."We're ready for the test sir."
"The military loaned me this after they found out they were still paying for last millenium's technology, but the most advanced form of it."
The senator presses a button.
The whole floor of the lobbyist filled room snaps up to a forty five degree angle. Its the Huge Mega Catapult 2000, for when you need to toss ten thousand pound rocks at enemy castles.
The lobbyists fly toward the Potomac....
Is that an invitation?
I could state that McCarthy's prime problem was his personality, but that he was right.
If you mean that he was right that there was a real communist/socialist threat to democracy, I'd say that's probably true. If you mean that all the people whose lives were destroyed by allegations of communist sympathies were dangerous, I don't accept that. I do think, though, that at least since FDR we've been tempering our free-market capitalism with doses of socialism--maybe prior to that, going back into the union movements of the late nineteenth century--and that some of it, at least, has had a positive impact on the way our country runs. I don't think you can have a pure capitalism or a pure socialism in the world as it is. The one burns too hot and needs to be tempered; the other goes cold and needs to be fueled.
And that Obama is probably hiding something on his birth certificate.
I know people think this, but apparently Hawaii has very strict privacy laws related to the release of official birth certificates. I hear that the governor of the state is trying to find ways around them so that the certificate can be published, but it's not simple. I tend to think he's not hiding anything.
Besides, the big issue is whether he is a natural-born American citizen, and as I understand it there is no debate about whether his mother was an American citizen, and the law is that if you are the child of an American citizen born anywhere in the world, you are a natural-born American citizen. It doesn't matter whether he was actually born in Kenya or Indonesia or Kansas or Hawaii, or who his real father is, or any of the other peripheral issues, as long as he is the child of an American citizen mother.
And that the Stimulus aka the Porkulus was harmful in the short and longterm.
Ah, but that's FDR economics.
The Reaganomics solution to a struggling economy is to reduce taxes, guarantee that they'll stay low for a period of years, and so give the rich money to invest in creating new business, thus new jobs, thus increased income from the lower tax rates. You and I agree that it works, even if it took five or six years for the turnaround to become truly effective when he did it. The Democrats do not agree that it works. They argue that the economy just managed to get better in spite of what Reagan did.
The FDR solution is for the government to print more money and use it to hire people directly, usually to build or repair physical plant. FDR built schools, power plants, roads, I'm not even sure what else. The theory is that when you pay money into creating private sector jobs directly, the people who have the money spend it, creating other jobs. Democrats say this is what got us out of the Great Depression, and I think it may have helped; but Republicans argue that what got us out of the Great Depression is the abrupt increase in demand from European markets brought on by the onset of World War II, and there's merit to that argument as well.
Democrats always go for the FDR solution, because they think it worked for them before, and because it tends to create a lot of small businesses rather than a few big ones. They also think it's faster: the paychecks reach the labor market sooner. Republicans argue that there's not much point to getting the paychecks out fast if in doing so you make the money worthless, which is arguably what happens when you increase the money supply without a pre-existing increase in production.
So that's probably a draw.
And that Lefties hate logic and reason.
Yeah, well, all extremists do. The fact is, though, that logic and reason are insufficient.
Jefferson and most of his peers were Enlightenment children. It was one of the core doctrines of the Enlightenment that there ultimately was one best answer to everything, and Reason could bring you to it. The concept of a legislature, an Enlightenment invention, is only secondarily that of representative democracy. It is more fundamentally based on the belief that if a group of intelligent reasonable men discuss any problem long enough and honestly enough they will ultimately all agree on the one best solution, because Reason will guide them to that answer.
What our Enlightenment forefathers missed was that reason and logic are tools to reach conclusions, but they are not bases for evaluating the merit these. That is, for example, if we have riots in the cities, and we conclude that the basis for the riots is that the poor have no jobs, no money, no food, no medical care, and very little in the way of other necessities of life, logic tells us that there are several ways to address the problem. One is that we can give these people food, money, medical care, and so on, which is a very quick solution with the long-term likelihood that we will be continuing to feed and house large numbers of indigent dependent citizens for generations to come. One is that we can create government jobs and hire all these people, which is going to increase the tax burden on everyone else quite seriously but will get money to the poor without making them dependent. One is we can create tax incentives or other benefits to encourage private sector jobs in the impacted areas, which will work in a lot of ways but will probably take longer to have significant impact. One is we can send in the National Guard and kill all the rioters, reducing the population of poor until it is a manageable quantity.
All of those solutions are logical and rational. The primary thing that distinguishes them is the values which underpin them. Jefferson was wrong: Reason does not bring everyone to the same answer, it works to allow everyone to find the answer that achieves his own objectives and values. If I think no one should be rich but everyone should have the same amount of money, I'm going to look for solutions that take money from everyone who has more than the poorest of the poor and brings everyone down to poverty level, and that will be an acceptable solution, because the problem is not that some people are starving but that others eat well. If I am opposed to any answer which creates more government and takes more money out of the pockets of those who have it, I'm going to look for a way to get the private sector involved in reducing the numbers of poor. If I am persuaded with Malthus that it is inherent to the nature of the world that population grows faster than resources and that it is necessary for large numbers of people to die in order for there to be enough food for those who remain, then I might not have the National Guard kill them, but I will keep them contained so they can quietly starve to death without becoming a threat to the rest of us.
That's a perfectly reasonable and rational and logical solution to the problem. It's just not a moral one. Your democratic opponents think that your answers are, on a smaller scale, immoral, because they are contrary to their values. Unless you can agree on those base values, logic and reason will not get you agreed answers.
--M. J. Young
A sarcastic comment. But one of my tykes and I both have 'feel bad-itis'. And I'm not sure we can or should do our plan for Hockey watching and Bowling as a family unit this weekend. Could be, probably the best thing to do is to send my ladyfaire and my other healthy (mostly) to....but then I hear other tyke coughing too.
Grumble.
To quote Stalin, 'can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.'. Would it have been a good thing for America to have Jane Fonda living out the rest of her days in comparative seclusion? Probably.
Sometimes you gotta make an example out of some people who are traitors, and are part of a conspiracy, and are elite. there is better ways to do it, true, but we still have powerful people defending the Commies. Th eonly ones who defend Nazis are powerless folk like Stormfront.
You really should give each and every person a fair trial, but at some point there's too many, too highly placed, too powerful. And yeah, that's a sickening thing to say. I don't know I could actually do it.
========================
Couldn't Obama just give permission? If so, why hasn't he? Two answers I think that might be true. 1)Bre'er Rabbit. 2)He's got something on their that is embarrassing but not disqualifying. Like he's registered as a Muslim at birth.
==========================
But Porkulous didn't even qualify for FDR's approval. Very little of it went to infrastructure.
Another solution is we give all our pet projects cash ('Here, People for the Hatred of America....we know you're near broke, have a billion bucks'), and let's give our political allies in the uniions even more cash, and the feminists....but surprisingly little goes to fixing bridges which we could all agree has some merit.
FDR would have been ticked off at our current ruling class is my theory. After all, what do you call fascism that can't even manage to get the trains running on time?
PostModernism, Mark, PoMo. It has some useful points, but this theory is a complete disdain of logic an dreason if taken to its logical end.
MJ, I'm going to be blunt. I can't believe what a MORON you're being. You want to see if I'm dedicated to non-involvement, and the "ONLY" want to do that is to have an MP arrest me on the spot? Dropping me in the middle of the compound, alone, and telling me where I am. What does John do? Does John flag down the nearest MP, or does John run? You're trying to tell me that killing two dozen MPs whilst trying to escape from that place wouldn't tell you a goddamn thing about how serious I was about non-involvement? Why don't you think about what in the hell you're saying once a while?
"Ya know, for a genius, you can be really stupid." (Turtle, D.A.R.Y.L.)
(Doing Therapy)
You really should give each and every person a fair trial, but at some point there's too many, too highly placed, too powerful.
The problem really is that you can't know whether there are too many too highly placed and too powerful if you don't give each of them due process. McCarthy probably would have labeled Clinton a communist; I heard Noam Chomsky call him a Republican. I don't think Chomsky is a socialist, but I'm sure McCarthy would have thought so.
Besides, if we have a democratic nation and the majority wants to initiate socialist solutions to our problems, doesn't the basic principle of our constitution require that we embrace and support what the majority chooses? It's totally unfair to attempt to silence those who are non-violently promoting a view of government with which we disagree. It's an open playing field. Arresting playwrights and movie stars and producers because they seem to be a bit too far to the liberal end of the spectrum is a complete violation of the concept of democracy.
On this point I stand with the ACLU: I might disagree with your politics, but I will defend to the death your right to declare them publicly.
As to Obama's birth certificate, I'm not certain what the Hawaiian privacy law actually states, but apparently they can't issue a certified copy to someone not qualified to receive one, period. I suspect he can get one for himself, but the problem is getting a first-hand copy, not a second-hand copy.
I don't know how much went where nationally. I know that we had repairs done to roads and bridges in nearby Bridgeton, a town depressed enough that it's what New Jersey designates as an "Enterprise Zone", a location in which with a few exceptions such as automobiles and restaurant meals sales tax is cut in half for all retailers required to collect it. I don't know that any of that work was badly needed, but I suppose it would have to be done eventually and it hadn't been done for a while.
But then, as Evan has said, we are now living in an obamanation.
--M. J. Young
GAH
Most of the money went to bailing out the banks, which have since mostly stabilized and paid the government back. Apparently, the big issue the stimulus is running into is that there's a pretty time-consuming planning and approval process for modern infastructure projects, meaning money cannot simply be transmuted into mass quantities of low-skill jobs without a multi-year lag. I can believe that, we've got a metro extension project just getting underway that's been in the planning phases as of the first time I ever rode the metro.
The issue with lowering taxes on the rich is that they don't have a pressing need to spend more money than they were anyway. If they get an unexpected windfall, they can reasonably stick it in the bank instead of going out and spending it on new shoes. Money in the bank is mildly useful because it means the banks can go and make loans safely, but it's not as useful as people spending money on products. Corporate taxes would be another story if major corporations actually paid them instead of being legally obligated to perform a complicated process involving sending it to ireland and back to best serve their shareholders.
On the matter of the medical schools thing a while back: I think that the decision should be transferred to another group, namely one that's not a medical union. It's standard for there to be a rigerous process for entry into professions where mistakes kill people, but it shouldn't be influenced by a desire to keep the numbers low to make more money.
JTM's right on his last point. He doesn't understand the reason you lower taxes, however. It is not to let the rich buy more shoes for themselves. And yeah, that is a large part of the problem for the Porkulous. My mind is coming up with numbers like 7 or 17% spent on infrastructure. Not impressive.
Mark,
There's a difference between agitating for peaceful change, and being a traitor. In wartime, posing in a provocative picture by one of the babes of the time, on an enemy cannon is 'aid and comfort to the enemy', and I'd say 'material' as well.
And you're dealing with a movement funded and ran by the KGB. Sometimes gray world tactics are needed.
And um, we're not a Democracy. We're a Constitutional Republic. And I say the first rule of the Constitution should be 'This is not a suicide pact'. If we democratically obliterate justice, are we then bound to respect the majority?
He doesn't understand the reason you lower taxes, however. It is not to let the rich buy more shoes for themselves
Actually, it would be a good thing if they spent the money on shoes, because it would increase the demand for shoes and encourage shoemakers to hire more people. The issue is that they don't actually have to spend the money on anything. Very poor people are more likely to spend extra money because they've got stuff they really want and couldn't buy.
Spending the money on infastructure isn't inherently better for the economy than spending it on anything else that employs people. It does leave the country with more infastructure than otherwise, which is a plus.
Not quite, Tad, we are also a representative democracy, specifically a liberal democracy. The ultimate power still lies with the people due to the voting system. Were we SOLELY a Constitutional Republic, we would not necessarily have to vote our representatives into office, at least by my understanding.
Linky:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy
Follow the citations for info that leads outside the not-always-trustworthy Wikipedia, if you desire.
But if the rich, desiring to be more rich, and having a willingess to put aside buying an extra five hundred shoes and a new trophy wife to go with them, instead takes his money, and builds a new factory that is more advanced.
Why then there is more of the pie to go around. Everyone is possibly better off.
OTOH, raise taxes on the rich, and they find unproductive loopholes, and they spend money on pleasing themselves so they get the new trophy wife who is a third cousin of Imelda Marcos. But, things are mostly the same, just shifted around a bit. Zero sum game.
That's why you cut taxes on the rich, JTM.
I'll check it out later, hopefully, Brock. And what?! Wikipedia is not accurate? I've been making this chemical compound that's bubbling on my stove for the last hour based on a recip
I dislike politics, but really, with the tax loopholes and rules. If you get everyone, people, corporations, pay a flat 13% with no deductions, if you make less than 10k, immune, it would solve a lot of the issues. If everyone was paying their fair share, there would be no basis for the fighting. Sure 13% of someone making a million is much, much less than someone getting 13% taken out of someone making 20k, but at least everyone knows, there are no legal loopholes, if you don't pay your 13%, you goto jail, no if's and's or but's. That's just my theory. I liked it when Jerry Brown proposed it years ago, and I still like it now. The only losers with this would be tax accountants and the IRS, but I can't shed a tear for either. With that said, with owning my home, I pay less than 13%, the deductions based on local taxes and mortgage interest alone are a lot :P
I like it too, even tho', with my two kids tax break, I would end up paying a lot more. But then the economy would boom like big time, so I figure I'd make out better in the end.
And as we raised more money, we could devote the extra cash toward three thirds....1/3rd to New Programs/Expansions/COLA increases AND 1/3rd to Paying Down Debt AND 1/3rd to reducing the tax rate incrementally.
hehe, good one, but really, it is editable by anyone, so you can't always trust it. Only the pages that are frequently edited or that are locked are trustworthy-I always follow the links and check sources, OR say my source isn't 100% trustworthy, depending on the time I have available. :)
In wartime, posing in a provocative picture by one of the babes of the time, on an enemy cannon is 'aid and comfort to the enemy', and I'd say 'material' as well.
I think Jane Fonda is a separate issue. A lot of Hollywood people and Broadway people were ostracized, shunned and blacklisted, in the 1950's, simply because it was believed by a certain Republican that their politics was too far to the left. This actually ultimately hurt the Republicans, because it allowed right-wing politicians to be extreme while forcing the left-wing party to become moderate, giving them the edge in the early 60's--because Americans will usually elect the more moderate-seeming candidate unless there are strong political reasons to do otherwise. (E.g., Nixon won in '68 because Johnson was mired in Vietnam; Carter beat Ford in '76 because of Watergate; Reagan had Carter's hostage crisis to boost him in '80.) But lives were destroyed based on suspicion of leftist tendencies, without due process, without material accusations, without anything other than the expression of the right to free speech and free opinion.
Whether Jane Fonda was guilty of treason would have been something for a court to decide. As far as I am aware, no charges were ever brought formally, perhaps because in the wake of the embarrassment of McCarthyism no one wanted to risk charging someone with the exercise of free speech. There were rumors that she was a collaborator, but expressing the opinion that the war is a bad thing and socialism is an acceptable form of government is not a crime in these United States, despite McCarthy's efforts to make it so--and as much as I wish no one would make such assertions, I am quite aware that if it were made a crime to express such an opinion, it might next be made a crime to express the opinion that Christianity is the only true religion, and you and I would be next on the blacklists.
Money in the bank is mildly useful because it means the banks can go and make loans safely, but it's not as useful as people spending money on products.
Obviously your a demand-side FDR economics fan: put money in the pockets of ordinary people directly and they will spend it, creating demand which will encourage industry to produce and hire more people. Whereas Eric:
But if the rich, desiring to be more rich, and having a willingess to put aside buying an extra five hundred shoes and a new trophy wife to go with them, instead takes his money, and builds a new factory that is more advanced.
...is a Reaganomics supply-side economics advocate, that if you give money to the people who invest in production you will get more production, and thus more jobs. The "trickle-down effect" is very real, it's just not as fast at getting money in the pockets of individuals, but it is probably faster and more effective at creating jobs because it does it directly.
The issue is that they [the rich] don't actually have to spend the money on anything. Very poor people are more likely to spend extra money because they've got stuff they really want and couldn't buy.
Ah, but they're not going to stuff it in their mattresses. They're going to "invest" it by putting money into companies that create jobs, or they're going to "save" it by putting it in banks that lend money to companies that create jobs. Sure, the poor are going to buy more food, more clothes, more shoes, that kind of thing, but they are not going to have the same direct impact on the production end--it will take longer for business to expand to meet the need, because the flow of capital is not as fast.
Obviously, both approaches have flaws.
If we give money to the rich, they need to save or invest it somewhere, and that means they're going to create jobs by making investment capital available cheaply. And entrepreneur who thinks he can make a profit will use that money to improve production, and in doing so will hire people; but he has to believe that there will be a market, either because he can produce something people with very little money will need, or he believes the can produce what they are already buying cheaper than what they're paying for it. You have to hit the rich with a huge surplus of cash to get enough production going that there are consumers for the product, and that's an effect that takes time.
If we give money to the poor, they spend it on what they need, which are usually things they are already buying but in greater quantities. Producers struggle to meet the demand, but capital is expensive because the rich don't have much to spare. Thus the only way to meet demand is to raise prices and so sell the same amount of product for the increased amount of money. Eventually sales at the inflated prices will finance increased production capability and create jobs, but by then the normal prices of everything will be higher.
So neither technique is completely flawless.
Spending the money on infastructure isn't inherently better for the economy than spending it on anything else that employs people.
Well, yes and no. As you say:
It does leave the country with more infastructure than otherwise, which is a plus.
I could spend a thousand dollars on movie tickets, or I could spend a thousand dollars on a car. So for my thousand dollars' worth of movie tickets I see maybe two movies a week for a year, and at the end of the year I have jumbled memories of a hundred movies. For my thousand dollars' worth of car, I probably still have the car, and I can probably sell it for five to eight hundred dollars, assuming I took care of it.
The government can hire a thousand census workers to do paperwork, or they can hire a thousand construction workers to build a bridge. O.K., we legally are required to perform the census, so we do have something to show for it; but the bridge is worth real money. We can charge tolls for crossing it, if it's a major bridge, and so recoup some of our expenditure.
We can argue whether a house is an "investment", but if I buy a house I have something of value, and if I rent a room for my whole life at the end of it I have nothing.
The government similarly can spend money to build government buildings, and then have the buildings for years to come; or they can spend money to rent space in private office buildings for government offices, and in years to come still be spending money on that rent.
Sure, there's a price trade-off. Owning a building means maintenance costs, so it's not without long-term costs; and there is the question of how long the building has to be used before it has paid for itself, versus what it would have cost to rent for the same period. But usually building the building will save money in the long term.
So if we spend the money on infrastructure, we have really changed wealth from one form to another: the building, the bridge, whatever we built, is "worth what we paid", and probably could be sold for that much (the building, at least, if not the bridge). If we spend it on services or consumables, it's gone.
There are those who believe you should never approve a bond issue for anything that will not result in the creation of a physical product of value. The state should not borrow money if it's not going to have something of value to show for it when it is paying the debt. Mortgages are fine; consumer credit loans are not.
If you get everyone, people, corporations, pay a flat 13% with no deductions, if you make less than 10k, immune, it would solve a lot of the issues.
Ah, but 13% of what?
Let's suppose that as an author I made a thousand dollars last year selling my books. That's not a real number, it's a round number pulled out of the air for my example. That's gross.
Half of that is in royalties owed to me by Valdron Inc, which have not been paid and with my blessing is being reinvested in the company until such time as they are stable enough that they can afford to pay out the royalties due to all contributors. The other half is books I sold personally through print-on-demand services over the Internet.
But to be on the Internet I need to pay my Comcast bill. I'm not sure, but let's assume that $30 per month of what I pay is for Internet access. That's $480 to be on the Internet at all.
I'm also paying about $120 to maintain my domain, mjyoung.net, so that I can promote the books and have the e-mail accounts through which to correspond with others.
So it costs me $600 to sell my books, for which I made $500 that I received and $500 that I am owed.
So do I pay $130 in taxes, 13% on the $1000 total I earned? Or do I pay $52 on the $400 net that I earned after paying the costs of earning this? Or do I pay $65 on the $500 gross that I was actually paid? Or can I subtract the $600 in costs from the $500 I received, ignore the $500 that I technically earned but have not yet received and may never receive, giving me a negative income total for the year?
The first reason we have deductions is that it is not fair to tax people for income they never actually received. If I'm a private grocery store, I might have gross income of ten thousand dollars a week, of which nine thousand dollars was used to purchase the groceries I sold and another five hundred paid the costs of operating the business. If you charge me 13% on the ten thousand dollars, or $1300, there's no point in me going to work. But then, if I decide I might make more money if I spend another $100 on an ad in the local paper, is that part of my operating expenses? Obviously it is, and if it works I'll make more money. What if I decide to give away coffee and donuts to my customers? What if I hire a kid to help clean the floors and stock the shelves after school? My income is limited by my expenses. Thus when I, as a small business proprietor, fill out my taxes, I include that I made $10,000, and then I put down all the deductions of what I had to spend to make that money.
There are a lot of other quirks, and some of them are due to the fact that we have a graduated income tax. But if you sell your home, should you have to pay 13% of the sale price? Do you get to subtract the amount that is paid to the Realtor? You probably sold it intending to use the money to buy another house; does this mean you made no profit, or that it's all profit? Or can you subtract the amount you paid for the house originally--and what if, as in your case, you never paid for the house? Is your profit measured by what your mother paid for the house?
Tax law is complicated because we want it to be fair, and financial transactions are complex. The taxes on my mother-in-law's house are about twice what they are on ours, I believe, despite the fact that her house is half the size of ours and her lot a quarter the size, because the taxes in her town are that much higher. Those taxes can be deducted from income on our tax returns, because it's a way of leveling the field somewhat, so that she's not overly penalized for living where she does.
A flat tax would be more unfair than anything we've had yet, for reasons like this.
--M. J. Young
MJ, I had written a response, then I reread your response. Basing an argument on Vauldron Inc, and how it works, is akin to building a bridge with a weak foundation. I won't go any further, but I think we both can agree, that a Fortune 1000 company not paying their fair due, as well as the 1% of richest Americans using tax law to funnel money away from paying taxes, hasn't worked to date. Do you have any suggestions? I have much more radical ones, like applying corporate standards to government spending. We do more with less people, less money and less manpower than ever before, why do we let bloat continue in government? I will also readdress home ownership and taxes. I believe I already made the point that I myself, pay next to no taxes, based on deductions made both from property taxes, and mortgage interest. To conclude, I do not think you proved your points about the flat tax being the least fair, in fact, without a rebuttal on what is "fair" and what isn't, making sure people can't cheat the system, is the closest to fair we can get.
Mark,
Ostracizing, shunning, and blacklisting are actions a society takes to protect itself or to punish its foes. Jailing, executing, and exiling are actions a government takes to deal with its foes.
It is legitamage to blacklist Nazis. If a Stormfront supporter were to come here, and want to make a setting based on the fallacious notions of Nazis being good, well, I probably would not help him. Or I would only help him as a way to expose him to reality. I certainly would not let him place his world, no matter how well crafted in one of my worldbooks.
And Commies are arguably worse than Nazis.
And its not just 'well some Republican senator thought they were a bit left'....Reagan was the head of the Screen Actor's Guild for a while, and he had to carry a gun to protect himself from the Commies. You're being too generous to scum, Mark.
I am a Reaganomics guy, true.
Another benefit of Reagan...Freedom!
Another benefit.............Actual healthy growth instead of diabetic growth which tends to be the effect created by Dem policies. There is a sweet stale stickiness to a Dem economy.
Another benefit.............Less money stuck to the fingers of Washington beuraucrats and thus wasted. A great deal of money goes to Washington, and significantly less ever leaves.
Another benefit.............It actually works. We're not sure the Dem plans work.
Another benefit.............Less power in Washington. Less power means less corruption. Less corruption means a greater chance for the skillful rather than than the cunning at cheating to win out, and thus benefit everyone.
Another benefit..............More friendly to the poor. A powerful gov't draws lobbyists like manure draws flies. These lobbyists are paid for by the rich, natch. Thus, they weaken the power of the vote, and t hus weaken the interest the gov't has in helping the poor compared to the rich.
Another beneift..............How many Get Rick Quick plans work vs. Careful, Hard Work Over years Plans? So is it a benefit that the Dem plan works faster?
The Great Depression.....kicked off by raising taxes (Smoot-Hawley Tariff), was extended by taxes. FDR had 90% tax rates on some businesses. Hard to make an economic recovery when you're being robbed daily.
After WW2, Kennedy did his tax cuts. Economy boomed.
If that were the case, the US government would not be in debt.A great deal of money goes to Washington, and significantly less ever leaves.
I think you've forgotten an important point about the timing of the start of this crash, specifically that it happened in 2007ish.It actually works. We're not sure the Dem plans work.
Actually, it was kicked off pretty much the same way as this one, except with stock. Also, were those 90% numbers on gross or net? Because one of those is not like the other.The Great Depression.....kicked off by raising taxes (Smoot-Hawley Tariff), was extended by taxes. FDR had 90% tax rates on some businesses. Hard to make an economic recovery when you're being robbed daily.
I think the first two words of the first sentence are more important than the last five.After WW2, Kennedy did his tax cuts. Economy boomed.
Corporate taxes are a strange beast altogether.
- Corporate taxes are a strange beast.
O.K., let's not be silly.
I saw a movie some years ago that I probably cannot find enough information to get the name. It was about a family in trouble, when the father lost his job. The kids decided to go into business. They lived on a farm, so they gathered the horse manure and went into business fertilizing lawns. They undercut the prices of the local lawn care company, and when they got the contract for the golf course, he was of course upset and decided to play unfairly. He called some friends in the government and got the tax department after the kids on the claim that they failed to collect sales taxes on their fertilizer. The kids entered the court and announced that they would be defending themselves, and proceeded to put on a defense.
At one point, they called to the stand the proprietor of the local feed store, and got him to testify that their father had properly paid sales tax on all the hay and grain he bought to feed the horse. The government lawyers objected that this was not at issue--they were not claiming that the kids had failed to pay sales tax, but that they had failed to collect it. The kid running the defense said that as far as he could see it was the same thing--they paid the sales tax, fed the feed to the horses, collected the processed feed, and sold it to their clients--and that even a kid knows that you can't collect taxes on the same thing twice.
Now, the funny thing about corporate taxes is, who is the corporation, and whose money is it when the corporation makes a profit? We say it belongs to the corporation, but what is the corporation? Technically, the corporation is the union of all its stockholders. My parents own stock in General Motors. I don't know how much they own, or how much stock General Motors has issued, but I do know that "I own stock in General Motors" is the same thing as "I (along with a lot of other people) own General Motors." Thus when General Motors makes a dollar, my parents just made whatever infinitessimal fraction of a dollar their share in the company represents.
It would be complicated and unfair to tax stockholders for the profits of the companies in which they own stock--unfair because, as with my royalties, they didn't actually get the money; complicated because each stockholder would have to figure out how much he earned for each company for which he owns a portion and pay tax on that. So we tax them all "corporately", charging the corporation as if it were an individual.
But then the corporation pays dividends. That is, it takes part of the money it earned and sends it to its shareholders, based on their share of the company. And the weird thing is, we also tax the shareholders for the money they receive in dividends.
Why is this weird? Because we already taxed that money when they got it as a corporation. That is, the corporation made a million dollars, and the government taxed that million dollars by taking 10%, or one hundred thousand dollars. That means we, the shareholders, paid one hundred thousand dollars, and if I as a shareholder own one tenth of one percent of the company, I just paid, by proxy as it were, one hundred dollars in taxes on my share of the corporate income. But then if the corporation decides to pay out to shareholders four hundred thousand of what it still has, my one tenth of one percent share means I'm going to get four hundred dollars cash, and that's going to land on my income tax return as income to me, which the government is going to tax--again, because they already taxed it as part of what I earned as a shareholder in the corporation.
I'm not saying that the tax system is perfect, or that there aren't ways to improve it. I'm saying that the problems involved in an income tax system are a lot more complicated than it appears at first blush. Simply identifying what constitutes "income" is a major complication, even for something as simple as a guy who runs a small grocery store all by himself. Figuring out what expenses really are costs of doing business and which ones are not is part of that problem. So is figuring out whether someone earned money if he has not yet received it--such as if the value of his stock or his home increases, or he is owed money that is accruing interest but he's not yet receiving it.
There are a lot of other reasons tax policy is complicated. Some of it has to do with government interests. For example, The State of New Jersey will give you a tax credit if you invest in making your house more energy efficient, from installing storm windows and insulation to adding solar or wind power generating systems. The State has also passed legislation that says that if you make qualifying improvements to your property, the local tax assessor can't increase the taxable value of your property to increase your property tax burden. That's been done because New Jersey has too many people in too small an area and can't meet both its energy needs and its Federal pollution limits without taking drastic steps. Tax policy is one way to get people to make decisions that will cost them money individually but will benefit the community generally.
That's the kind of thinking behind letting corporations and wealthy individuals deduct contributions made to public television or museums and theatres and concert halls, or non-profit charitable institutions. It's because we want people to make these kinds of contributions for the benefit of society at large, but that means we don't want them to be penalized for having done so. And if you can document that you gave twenty percent of your income to your local church in weekly installments, you will be counted as having made twenty percent less than your paycheck says you earned.
You work in IT. I suspect that you often acquire and install hardware for your clients. So let's suppose you have a big job. I know that when my friend Grey Vanaman of Audio-Clear (whom I've mentioned periodically in the Blogless Lepolt) does a sound system install, he'll charge a client for the full price of the job, often with an itemized accounting of what that covers. So let's suppose you're doing a ten thousand dollar job installing several computers in a network. You have to buy or build the computers, but if you're building them you have to buy the parts. We'll suppose that with monitors they cost you four thousand dollars. You also need routers, cables, backup power systems, another thousand. You finish the job. You're handed a check for ten thousand dollars, which you put in the bank.
So, on your flat tax theory, you just got ten thousand dollars. You should pay one thousand three hundred dollars on that. But wait! Didn't it cost you six thousand dollars to make that? Sure it did. So you only made four thousand dollars. Oh, yeah, and you had to do a lot of driving to get there and back, and to pick up and move all that equipment. That's gas, but it's also wear and tear on the vehicle. And there was that one day you gave four guys a hundred dollars each to help carry the heavy stuff and get it in place.
"Deductions" means that you don't have to pay tax on the money you had to spend to make the money you ultimately earned. It means that you pay tax on maybe three thousand dollars on that job, because that's the amount you made--net--once all the expenses were taken out of the amount you made--gross. But without "deductions", you pay taxes on the amount of cash you are handed, regardless of what it might have cost you to get it.
Flat taxes are, as I say, too simplistic. They sound good to people who haven't really looked at the problems, and so they win votes from people who think the other guy isn't paying his share. But the answer is figuring out how much each person's share ought to be, and just who ought to be paying what.
--M. J. Young
MJ, again, without getting into paragraphs of back and forth. Flat Income Tax for people is what it is, you make 10,000, you pay $1300. For businesses it's 13% of your net, and if you are caught cheating by playing around with how much you have "spent" and how much "gross" you have received, you receive a fine much bigger than the taxes you were to pay. I am not seeing any suggestions for a fix, or an alternative system.
I am not even talking about sales tax (which I think should replace the entire tax system completely, you get taxed based on what you consume). The debate on how we get tax, taxed again, and taxed again is a whole thread on its own. The flat tax, makes a very complicated system more transparent. We need some transparency to see where our money is coming from and where it is going. The last statement in your argument, is the whole reason why the current system isn't working. No one can agree what each person's share should be. The current system, is put in place to make it hard for the common person to know what can be deducted, and by how much. It's a catch 22, you take a standard deduction, and most likely shaft yourself from a bigger refund, or take deductions, worried that the IRS Gestapo will come knocking on your door, wondering where the recruit for that box of pencils is. For a system, almost every US Citizen has to deal with every payday, and once a year in filing taxes, I propose it is too complicated.