by frankiespeakin 79 Replies latest jw friends
Makes one wonder how we ever got out of the caves and built cities without all that wonderful bureaucracy!
WOW the ignorance of that statement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization
Without organization leading to civilization we would still be in those caves.
Canada and Australia small what are you smoking. Japan has it the worst. Japan has about the half the size of the US's population but is the size Texas with few natural resources and Japan kicks the US's butt.
5go.....we are talking about managing tax distribution which is based on population statistics, not land mass.
Australia: 21 million
Canada: 33 million
Japan: 127 million
<------------------5g0
5go.....we are talking about managing tax distribution which is based on population statistics, not land mass.
Australia: 21 million
Canada: 33 million
Japan: 127 million
21% of whatever number is still 21% percent and still bad compared to 2.4% percent of whatever number. You still have to explain why a country that use a different system gets better results. Japan, Australia, and most of Europe even have immigration racial problems to boot. So what is the excuse for the US doing so poorly yet also claiming to be the richest nation.
<------------------5g0
CommunismYep I am.1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)
Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)
A Paraphrased Synopsis
- Governments are typically more harmful than helpful and therefore cannot be justified. Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice.
- The judgment of an individual’s conscience is not necessarily or even likely inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so “[i]t is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.… Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.”(¶4)
- Indeed, you serve your country poorly if you do so by suppressing your conscience in favor of the law — your country needs consciences more than it needs conscienceless robots.
- It is disgraceful to be associated with the United States government in particular. “I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave’s government also.”(¶7)
- The government is not just a little corrupt or unjust in the course of doing its otherwise-important work, but in fact, the government is primarily an agent of corruption and injustice. Because of this, it’s “not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize.”(¶8)
- Political philosophers have counseled caution about revolution because the upheaval of revolution typically causes a lot of expense and suffering. However, such a cost/benefit analysis isn’t appropriate when the government is actively facilitating an injustice like slavery: Such a thing is fundamentally immoral and even if it would be difficult and expensive to stop it, it must be stopped because it is wrong. “This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.”(¶9)
- We can’t blame this problem solely on pro-slavery Southern politicians, but must put the blame on those here in Massachusetts, “who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may.… There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them.”(¶10) (See also: Thoreau’s “Slavery in Massachusetts” which also advances this argument.)
- Don’t just wait passively for an opportunity to vote for justice. Voting for justice is as ineffective as wishing for justice; what you need to do is to actually be just. This is not to say that you have an obligation to devote your life to fighting for justice, but you do have an obligation not to commit injustice and not to give injustice your practical support.
- Paying taxes is one way in which otherwise well-meaning people collaborate in injustice. People who proclaim that the war in Mexico is wrong and that it is wrong to enforce slavery contradict themselves if they fund both things by paying taxes. The same people who applaud soldiers for refusing to fight an unjust war are not themselves willing to refuse to fund the government that started the war.
- In a republic like ours, people often think that the proper response to an unjust law is to try to use the political process to change the law, but to obey and respect the law until it is changed. But if the law is itself clearly unjust, and the lawmaking process is not designed to quickly obliterate such unjust laws, then the law deserves no respect — break the law. In our case, the lawmaking process is of no help, and in fact the Constitution itself — which enshrines the institution of slavery — is evil. Abolitionists should completely withdraw their support of the government and stop paying taxes, even if this means courting imprisonment.
- “Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.… where the State places those who are not with her, but against her, — the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.… Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.”(¶22)
- The government will retaliate. I prefer living simply because I therefore have less to lose. “I can afford to refuse allegiance to Massachusetts…. It costs me less in every sense to incur the penalty of disobedience to the State than it would to obey. I should feel as if I were worth less in that case.”(¶24)
- I was briefly imprisoned for refusing to pay the poll tax, but even in jail felt freer than the people outside. I considered it an interesting experience and came out of it with a new perspective on my relationship to the government and its citizens.
- I am willing to pay the highway tax, which goes to pay for something of benefit to my neighbors, but I am opposed to taxes that go to support the government itself — even if I can not tell if my particular contribution will eventually be spent on an unjust project or a beneficial one. “I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually.”(¶36)
- Government is a man-made disaster, not a natural one, and so I like to think that its makers can be reasoned with. As governments go, ours, with all its faults, is not the worst and even has some admirable qualities. But we can and should insist on better. “The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.… Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and trea
CommunismYep I am.1 a : a theory advocating elimination of private property b : a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably.
Here you go 5g0. Choose one and move there:
Communist nations: China, Cuba, Laos, N. Korea, Vietnam
Yep I am.
My family could tell you a few things about how wonderful communism is.
Burn
Here you go 5g0. Choose one and move there:
Communist nations: China, Cuba, Laos, N. Korea, Vietnam
Those are about as communist as the US is capitalist. Funny you put China on that list Seeing as I hear plenty on the right hold it up as a great example of capitalism at work. Also the Irony since they are the next superpower and own the USA economy lock, stock, and barrel.
BTW my list for you to move to Chile, Mexico, China, all of Africa, and really all of the third world minus the countries you posted. All of them practice true capitalism way more than the US does.
