welfare (thread turned into Y.a. neos v paleos argument)

[Gabu]

I'll go with corporate welfare.  The thing about the giving public money to the campaigns is that it at least has a fairly noble goal behind it, that goal being making it so that a presidential election is more about the candidates and less about who can raise a billion dollars and massively outspend the other guy into oblivion.  Although I like the Canadian thing more, where each candidate is simply required to spend less than a certain amount on his or her campaign, but then again, this is fascism that is blocking free speech, so we can't have that...

[Gabu]

I have certainly noticed that it seems to be the case that everyone likes John Dibble except the libertarians...

[Gabu]

What ever the LP does policywise won't change until it changes its public image.

Well, I think the two are at least slightly correlated.  The Libertarian Party's public image is likely to improve if it stops talking about wanting to implement policies that 99% of voters think are insane.

[Gabu]

That's what drives me insane. What Libertarians support is Individual freedom, personal responsibility and government limited to its constitutional duties. Boy thats really insane isn't it? More specifically we believe in free speech, the right to keep and bear arms, privacy rights, property rights, due process rights, habeas  corpus and all other rights identified in the Bill of Rights or elsewhere in the constitution. Wow that's really far out there isn't it? We also believe that taxes could be dramatically lower if the federal government stuck to its constitutional duties, as mandated by the 10th amendment. Holy cow! Call out the men in white coats!

The things that probably get us labeled as whackos are believing that people's sexual preference is their own business, not the governments and that people should be free to decide what to eat, drink, smoke, inhale or otherwise ingest. And if I'm not mistaken, Gabu those are things that you support as well,... wacko.

If I tell you the truth, which is that 99% of voters think the Libertarian Party is insane, and then you retort by trying to convince me that it's not, I think this quite fairly underscores the Libertarian Party's problems, really.

And sure, the stuff above isn't crazy.  But I recall the time that the Libertarian Party tried to argue that the income tax was unconstitutional because it was slavery.  That's the sort of stuff people find crazy.  The Libertarian Party seems to be in total denial that it supports or has supported anything that the general public would be unable to stomach, which is I think its major problem.  Far too many Libertarians think that they just need people to know who they are and then they'll get elected everywhere.

[Gabu]

I've argued that the income tax is slavery, but I'm an ideologue.  Hell I even changed avatar because I don't want people associating veiws as extreme as mine with the party.  However, I would like you to find out for me whether the 16th Amendment was ever properly constitutionally ratified.  On that basis alone we should protest it.

The only arguments that I could find against the 16th amendment being properly ratified are ones that contend punctuation, spelling, and capitalization was not consistent among the various ratified versions and one that contends that Ohio was not a state until 1953 because it never officially proclaim such.

All of these seem like ridiculously weak arguments that reek of deciding on a conclusion and then looking for evidence.

[Gabu]

Punctuation, spelling and capitalization are important.  Such a minor detail can totally change the meaning of a statute, and it's a legitimate complaint that if the amendement passed in one state and is not worded exactly how it is in congress, then it shouldn't be passed because the state didn't pass the same thing.

What exactly was changed?  This is an honest question, because I don't know.  If "income" was changed to "inn come" then you'd have a case.  If "income" was changed to "Income", then... no.

Also, did similar things happen in amendments that came around the same time period?  I can't imagine why they wouldn't, if it happened to the sixteenth amendment.

"Another argument made by tax protesters is that the word "income" as used in the Sixteenth Amendment cannot be interpreted as applying to wages. Others have claimed that wages are not income because labor is exchanged for them (see below)."
Which is a good argument.  I've a friend who doesn't pay income tax on the basis that it's not the same thing-he works for wages and not an income.

in‧come
–noun
   1. the monetary payment received for goods or services, or from other sources, as rents or investments.

...how is money made through a job not income?  You provide an employer services.  They give you money for it.  That's income by the most fundamental definition of the word.

"Thomas is a tax protester, and one of his arguments is that he did not need to file tax returns because the sixteenth amendment is not part of the constitution. It was not properly ratified, Thomas insists, repeating the argument of W. Benson & M. Beckman, The Law That Never Was (1985). Benson and Beckman review the documents concerning the states' ratification of the sixteenth amendment and conclude that only four states ratified the sixteenth amendment; they insist that the official promulgation of that amendment by Secretary of State Knox in 1913 is therefore void."
Even though we didn't have all 50 states back then, I'm sure four states is less than the required amount needed to ratify.

This is the same argument as above regarding spelling and whatnot, as far as I can tell.

I would make the argument that it goes against the thirteenth amendment, that involuntary servitude can be involuntary if the state takes money directly from a worker.  Did the worker voluntarily work for that part of his check?

That argument is fine until you realize that the sixteenth amendment is part of the Constitution.  The Constitution cannot be unconstitutional by definition.  It's the Constitution.  Whatever is in the Constitution defines what is constitutional.  It's up to the interpreter to make an interpretation of the Constitution that renders it consistent, and the only such interpretation is one in which an income tax is not considered involuntary servitude.  There is no clause in the Constitution that states "whenever two amendments conflict, the one ratified at a later date is void" (which is a damn good thing in my opinion, given how much the courts would probably go to town throwing out amendments left and right if it did).

[Gabu]

wage
n.

   1. Payment for labor or services to a worker, especially remuneration on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis or by the piece.

It's called an income tax and not a wage tax.  If they wanted to keep taking money from my labor like they do every week, it should be called a wage tax.  An income tax by definition would be one where they tax any properties I own and investments I make.  Otherwise they should have named it a 'wage tax'.

How are the terms "wage" and "income" mutually exclusive?  I don't see anything that says that a wage paid to workers cannot be income for that worker.  Read the definition of income and tell me how money paid for an employee's services cannot be taken as income.

Not isn't not, you just can't think of any argument against the fact only four states ratified it, so you pass it off as 'obviously silly'.

Okay, what is the evidence that only four states ratified it, then?  I thought that this argument was saying that only four states ratified the "official version" (i.e., the one without alterations in punctuation and whatnot).

Sadly, you are right that it is constitutional as the constitution cannot be unconstitutional.  However it is contradictory in it's nature and should be thrown out as a result.  Some amendments do need throwing out.  The Bill of Rights was the biggest safeguard to our freedoms in guaranteeing negative rights.  However I don't approve many of the later amendments that give positive rights nor give government explicit permission.

It's contradictory only if you take taxes to be involuntary servitude.  Many don't.

[Gabu]

In other words, people who work should have their hard earned money taken from them and given to lazy people who don't want to work. Does that seem fair?

No.  But on that note, would it seem fair for someone who tries very hard to earn a living but simply can't catch a break to simply be thrown to the wayside and ignored because he or she had unfortunate circumstances in life?

The attitude among many people that all citizens on welfare are simply lazy bums who don't want to work is quite disgusting, frankly - no offense.

[Gabu]

I wouldn't say it's disgusting -- it's an attitude that is borne of frustration with welfare advocates who don't want to acknowledge that the programs they advocate are being abused, which they are.

Often, people end up on welfare due to poor choices and poor decisions, sometimes coupled with laziness that prevents them from overcoming the effects of their decisions.  Welfare becomes a trap, and they develop "the attitude," which I have seen firsthand many times.  "The attitude" is a big part of why so many people hate welfare recipients.

Many on welfare are handicapped in some way, generally mentally, due to drug addiction, some form of mental illness, etc.  I don't think it's realistic to think that long-term welfare is for average people who just suffered from some bad luck.  People like that recover, and get back on their feet eventually.

Of course welfare gets abused now and then, but I'm talking about people who take it to the extreme, who think that no one would ever need welfare in a totally free market, who think that people on welfare are just lazy bums who want to be on welfare, etc., etc.