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The Spectacle Blog
Phil, your point about the morality of markets is one I've made myself:
Whereas transactions in a market economy are voluntary and peaceful, the actions of government are essentially coercive, backed with the threat of violence to those who disobey. What government does, it does "at the point of the bayonet," so to speak. Therefore, the fearsome power of government ought to be constrained to limited and specific purposes -- defending the life, liberty and property of citizens.
When government begins to meddle in the economy, picking winners and losers, using appropriations and fiscal policy to transfer money from one group of citizens to another, it divides society into two classes, taxpayers and tax consumers, punishing the former in order to reward the latter.
Such a policy is not merely misguided, it is immoral -- indeed, it is sinful . . . and by displaying the spectacle of government engaging daily in legalized theft, the welfare state tends to corrupt the morals of its citizens.
If conservatives are unwilling to defend the market economy on moral grounds, if they are unwilling to denounce coercive expropriation as immoral, all that remains to be settled is the question Lenin bluntly summarized as "Who, whom?"
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More Blog Posts by Robert Stacy McCain
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/01/28/re-pondering-tax-cuts
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J David| 1.28.09 @ 5:05PM
If I must pay more and more of my profit margin to the government so they can pay it to non-producers(and untaxed), to schooling and health benefits to non-citizens, to subversive groups like La Raza, CAIR, and etc. ; to ACORN, to the NEA to teach my kids perversion and Islam, to the EPA to find ways to keep me from using the land I spent money on, to trespassers who stumble while trying to steal my belongings or shoot my stock and they turn around and sue me, to the ACLU - through gov't funding so they can sue me for sexual harassment, discrimination, thought or speech crimes, exactly what reason am I left with for getting out of bed, esp. when the gov't will pay me to stay in bed and fornicate, and pay my squeeze to pop out more babies to get on to Welfare? This country is over...
J David | 1.28.09 @ 5:10PM
It appears to the cynical that the patriotic thing to do, in which one can be allowed to NOT PAY TAXES, and thus help de-fund one's own enslavement by the gov't with his own money, is QUIT PRODUCING(at least visible producing)!
Bugg| 1.28.09 @ 5:12PM
Unless and until you get rid of AMT, tax cuts are pointless.As it currrently stands, middle class people do not see any impact of Bush's tax cuts. And until SOMEONE decides the spending orgy known as the federal government is seriously checked, you are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
In the debates, Obama said we needed surgery on the budget, not cutting of whole parts, Just one more thing The One is wrong about. We need serious amputations and significant cuts. Alas, it won't happen any time soon.
Alan Brooks| 1.28.09 @ 7:52PM
J David,
if the govt would pay men to stay in bed to have the squeeze pop out welfare babies, that would appear to be an argument to keep roe v. wade, so as to trim the numbers.
i think maybe you guys have been outfoxed on that one.
JimGogek| 1.30.09 @ 2:39PM
New study by UC San Diego shows that government spending of $1 raises GDP by about $1.40. Meanwhile, people use tax rebates to pay down their debt and increase savings. Good evidence that the cry for tax cuts only to get us out of recession won't work. http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/soc/01-09TaxCuts.asp
sidnee| 12.12.09 @ 12:46PM
jack wills
ugg new arrivals