Topic: Socialism (Read 8028 times)

Amen!

There's nothing wrong with a socialist system as long as participating in it is voluntary.  Socialists should be free to live in a socialist system and capitalists should be free to live in a capitalist system.

It's also for strong people.

Some people are just naturally better at things than other people.  On an evolutionary time scale humans are more adapted to hunter/gatherer modes of existence.  In this case, individual variation in abilities was 'buffered' since the small social groupings lived under fairly egalitarian systems generally.

In the modern world slight variations in abilities quickly lead to huge differences in competitiveness.  If that is not 'bad' enough, other structures are perpetuated which result in structural imbalances which favor skills in generally counter-productive areas (e.g., violence and/or theft/fraud), and they take on a multi-generational component leading to dynastic wealth accumulations.

I was lucky enough to have some skillz which produced a competitive advantage in my society.  I favor 'distribution of wealth' as a means of promoting more stable social systems and discouraging periodic violent revolutions and such.  Revolutionary events inevitably involve much suffering, and rarely achieve the initial goals...they tend to just shuffle the chips to a different set of power holders.  I define 'socialism' as a system which distributes wealth from people like me across society in order to promote a better quality of life for society in general.  Like making sure that old people are taken care of and everyone can have a decent level of health care for instance.

I also put my money where my mouth is in that I sometimes pay more in taxes than the average person earns.  I mainly bitch about taxes when the rules are rigged for people in my situation and I don't feel that I pay enough via various carefully engineered tax loopholes and the like.  The 'reward' that I get for pulling slightly harder on the wagon is that I don't have to fund death squads to help me preserve what I've got and trip over teaming masses of angry peasants ever time I go out in public.

I don't feel that a deadbeat deserves a high quality of life, and I don't know anyone who does.  'Socialism' offering a deadbeat a decent existence on the backs of people who are willing to work is a myth perpetuated by right winger Koch brother types in order to herd people into supporting political structures which facilitate an increase in their own dynastic wealth pools.

Socializm for weak people....

Socialism means your economic decisions are interfered with by others in the community (this can take many forms and is responsible for the various flavors and styles of suggested intervention)..

I thought she was paying other people to go down…

Sorry, cheap shot. I'm a bad person.

And Heidi Fleiss...  That's what she went down for too..

People often confuse "socialism" with the concept of "communism." While the two ideologies share much in common, in fact communism encompasses socialism.
The primary difference between the two is that "socialism" applies to economic systems, whereas "communism" applies to both economic and political systems.

Another difference between socialism and communism is that communists directly oppose the concept of capitalism, an economic system in which production is controlled by private interests.
Socialists, on the other hand, believe socialism can exist within a capitalist society.

"Tax evasion" is a criminal subset of the larger set of "tax fraud" laws.

http://www.taxwhistleblowerreport.com/department-of-justice/tax-fraud-vs-tax-evasion---how-can-a-whistleblower-tell-the-differencewe-get-questions-all-the-time/

As to the earlier point about whether you can go to jail for simple failure to pay, it looks as though the law says you can.

In any case, even if you don't go to prison, lets say they repossess your house or some other belonging in your possession. They will send the sheriff to remove you from the property or to take away whatever it is they are taking away. If you refuse, the people with guns and badges will arrest you. If you resist, it is fairly unlikely you'll actually be shot, but you will likely end up face down on the ground with guns pointed at you while you are being handcuffed. The "threat of violence" is very real even if you file all your returns honestly and then simply refuse to pay.

I don't know if you're counting me among the starry-eyed but if I have defended socialism it's not because I disagree with your first paragraph but because I prefer to see a straight-up socialist program which will sooner or later devolve into cronyism to one that starts up-front with the cronyism. As an example, given the choice between single-payer healthcare and the Affordable Care Act, I'd rather see single-payer.

You can reform or repeal socialism—not easily, but it is possible. Cronyism is with us forever, and doesn't even give us that few decades, years, or months of actual benefit before devolving and/or dragging the economy down to do more harm than good; it just starts biting us in the ass on day 1.

It's a lesser of two evils thing, not a desire for socialism. Except for courts, law enforcement, fire departments, roads, and schools (and probably more I can't think of off the top of my head). As stated before, I am in favor of that much socialism. Or at the very least saving them for the last to take away from government.

Thanks. Evasion suggests avoiding paying taxes (as per definition of evasion), so it doesn't sound that different from failing to pay taxes because you don't want to, e.i. avoiding it. I think tax evasion should be renamed tax fraud (i.e. lying), but I guess they'll call it whatever they want.

You don't know?

Tax evasion is lying about what you owe.

What's the difference between tax evasion and failure to pay taxes?

wow a real sovereign living here in the us. link?

Only reason I know about this is because of a new report about how some guy living on some compound is refusing to pay taxes, but the only reason the police is not going in there guns blazing is because he and his family/friends are well armed, and they don't leave the compound, being mostly self-sufficient. So the police just figure it's better to leave them alone.

Tax evasion is a different crime.

There are three tax related crimes:

1. Tax Evasion. This is a felony and you can go to prison. 5 year maximum.
2. Filing a False return. This a felony and you can go to prison. Slightly less of a punishment than evasion (3 years max).
3. Failure to file a tax return. This is a misdimeanor, and it's unlikely that you will go to jail (even then the max sentence is 1 year so you won't go to prison). You will get a huge fine.

But #3 is assuming you have something to pay taxes for. Like I said, if you don't use any taxable services you can't be taxed.

I'm pretty sure that you can.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/lauryn-hill-starts-prison-sentence-tax-evasion-article-1.1393101
http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/news/11079783/used-car-dealer-gets-30-months-in-prison-for-tax-evasion
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2013/07/colleyville-pharmacist-and-son-get-prison-time-for-tax-fraud.html/
http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/12/09/snipes.jail/index.html
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/woman-sentenced-in-st-louis-to-prison-for-million-tax/article_5749051d-fe88-5837-a869-ddc2199400a6.html

(and that's just from the first two pages of results in Google)

…and of course, there was Al Capone.

Socialsim doesn't work because soclialism always devolves into cronyism sooner or later, no matter how good your intentions are at first. Crooks are constantly figuring out new and creative ways to seize the levers of power. They're a lot better at it than you. They're smart and they work at it 24/7. So while you're busy writing letters to your congressmen and whatnot, they're busy writing checks (among other things). Who do you think 'your representative' is going to listen to?

All you starry-eyed socialists out there better wake up and wake up fast.

From the way you describe it, it seems as though the NAP is just common sense. I guess I follow it anyways. I don't go around picking fights.

Also, I'm pretty sure that you cannot go to prison for not paying taxes. They may take the clothes off your back until you pay it, but if you have nothing to take they can't do anything.