The Joy of Ron Paul's 'Liberty Defined'..

[redcliffsw]

"...Something did change with the publication of The General Theory. Keynes gave the governments of the world a seemingly scientific rationale for doing what governments wanted to do anyway."

"'Taxes are the price we pay for civilization,' according to Oliver Wendell Holmes. This claim has cost us dearly...If we as a nation continue to believe that paying for civilization through taxation is a wise purchase and the only way to achieve civilization, we are doomed."
-Gary Gibson

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig12/gibson-g2.1.1.html

[Diane Amberg]

Would you rather have everything fee based? Not everything is tax based! There are also tolls, license fees and fines, lotteries, and ticket sales that make money for the Gov't. in many states.

[Ross]

I suppose the alternative is a country so far in debt that it faces another depression.
Foreign aid being paid to China to buy their friendship (civilization) with us I suppose is a good investment.
I have never bought friendship but I suppose that's because it only works as long as the money is flowing.
But again if there is backstabbing involve that wouldn't stop either.

redcliffsw posted this one another link. It is excellent reading. It's about ethics in politics.
http://fee.org/library/not-yours-to-give-2/

[srkruzich]

Would you rather have everything fee based? Not everything is tax based! There are also tolls, license fees and fines, lotteries, and ticket sales that make money for the Gov't. in many states.

that would be a start. I've advocated that for years.  
it is that way with fire service.  when you have a fire you get billed for it.
and we don't need cops either, thats what my .357 is for.

[flintauqua]

When you speak of ethics in politics, are you speaking only of the persons in government, or do you also include ethics in corporate boardrooms?  Who has greased the wheels of politicians for the past . . . forever?  Who has shipped all the manufacturing jobs to Mexico or China.  And before you say a word about it being the result of high labor costs or high regulation, why do the Japanese and Koreans build cars here in the states. 

Laizze-faire capitalists have contributed greatly to the collapse of the American manufacturing base, yet they have somehow managed to throw their share of the blame onto labor and government.  And now they want to pay even less in taxes on the profits they make by selling us all the stuff they made somewhere else and paid zero tariffs on due to pushing "free-trade' treaties.

Do the majority of right-wingers really believe all of the recent tea party/libertarian activism is about reducing taxes and regulations for the betterment of 'we the people'?  It is about already ultra-rich capitalists becoming even richer by reducing constraints placed upon them so they can make even more profit, and pay an even smaller percentage of taxes on those profits than they do now.

Now, feel free to throw some radically Liberal label on me, since I dare to speak up from a Moderate/Conservative position about what is really going on in the Reationary right portion of the political spectrum.

[Patriot]

Perhaps it's time to revisit the enumerated powers contained in the Constitution.

[flintauqua]

Gee, who could possibly think the rich would use a 'return to the constitution' to line their own pockets?  I guess I'll go back to planting potatoes outside my little hovel to supplement the little wheat the Lord bestows upon me for doing his work.

[Patriot]

Gee, who could possibly think the rich would use a 'return to the constitution' to line their own pockets?  I guess I'll go back to planting potatoes outside my little hovel to supplement the little wheat the Lord bestows upon me for doing his work.

If I really believed you were doing the Lord's work, I would gladly send you some seed potatoes.  But since you detest capitalism and love government so much... I guess you can get them from your local county Office of Seed Potato Distribution.  Just don't open a flour & french fry stand outside your hovel... that would be a capitalistic move, no?

[srkruzich]

If I really believed you were doing the Lord's work, I would gladly send you some seed potatoes.  But since you detest capitalism and love government so much... I guess you can get them from your local county Office of Seed Potato Distribution.  Just don't open a flour & french fry stand outside your hovel... that would be a capitalistic move, no?

That reminds me of a few years back some bozo was using food stamps to cook food up and take it out in a cooler to worksites and selling the food as a business. They got caught and the liberals came out of the wood work cause the law was going to prosecute them.  Poor unfortunate that was trying to better themselves.  Nothing but fraud pure and simple. 

[flintauqua]

If I really believed you were doing the Lord's work, I would gladly send you some seed potatoes.  But since you detest capitalism and love government so much... I guess you can get them from your local county Office of Seed Potato Distribution.  Just don't open a flour & french fry stand outside your hovel... that would be a capitalistic move, no?

In hindsite Lord (as in a sub-Duke) was an unfortunate choice of words on my part when dealing with you.  You know what I meant, and so does everyone else.

As I have stated in more ways than I care to count - I fear pure unfettered Capitalism as much as I fear pure theoretical Communism.  You obviously do not fear one of them.