Fair Tax - Announcement of Tax Day Outreach

Discussion
1

From David Peters.

Marcy

  <http://www.fairtax4ca.org/images/fairtax4ca.gif>

Please join me
April 15, 2013
Noon to 3:30pm
Civic Center Plaza
San Francisco, Ca.

This will be a collaborative effort to acquaint the general public with the
harm perpetrated by the current tax system. There will be a table containing
educational literature greeters distributing literature on the sidewalks,
and a
march from Civic Center to the Federal Building to call attention to our
presence.
All in the name of peaceful assembly.

Call and email your representative and senators. Tell them you want the
income tax replaced with the Fair Tax. Learn more at www.FairTax.org.

Sincerely,
Marty Sturmer
(415) 866-5800

2

The Unfair Tax resurrected!

3

I like the idea of everyone paying the same rate on items we choose to purchase! I would prefer this system, or the "Flat Tax", to the current system, given that I have never been able to visualize a completely tax-free system in the developed world.

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=HowFairTaxWorks

Marcy

4

Marcy,

  What aspect of voluntary taxation do you have difficulty visualizing?

  By the way, does anyone know who Marty Sturmer is?

Love & Liberty,
                                ((( starchild )))

5

Starchild,

"voluntary taxation?"

Marcy

6

Oops, I neglected to answer the second part of your post, Starchild. Sorry. Marty apparently is the local representative of Fair Tax California (thus his insertion of the paragraph on the Fair Tax). I guess they are promoting the Fair Tax bills now in the California Legislature.

Since the idea of the Outreach is educational, literature on the Fair Tax, along with other forms of funding civil society, would be appropriate (including the part in the Fair Tax about items purchased for business, export, or investment being exempt).

Marcy

7

Marcy,

  An example of voluntary taxation would be a system under which it is legal, but not required, to make donations to government; there might be suggested "tax" (donation) levels for people with varying levels of income or wealth, kind of like church tithes. It would be illegal for government to seize your money or resources without your consent, or compel you to donate under threat of aggression, as they do now.

  An alternate version of this reform would be a system under which it is only legal to donate to government when the donation would be going toward a specific, constitutionally authorized purpose.

  I like the idea of everyone paying the same penalty for donations we choose not to make (i.e. no penalty at all, since it is our money).

Love & Liberty,
                                ((( starchild )))

8

Thanks, Marcy. I guess you are not worried that promoting the "fair" tax at our rally might drive away anarchists or tax voluntaryists the way you are concerned that promoting non-tax-related libertarian issues might drive away conservatives?

Love & Liberty,
                                  ((( starchild )))

9

Hi Starchild,

Apples and oranges not the same thing as Fuji apples and Granny apples!

Marcy

10

Hi Starchild,

When I read your earlier post, I also thought of religious tithes as the closest comparison to "voluntary" taxation in the real world. However, although tithes are not brought about by outwardly evident force, they occur under circumstances of subtle force -- you go to hell if you do not do it! I really cannot think of a powerful enough subtle force in the secular world that would propel people to give to the government. But maybe there can be such a force as a result of some kind of successful secular social conditioning.

Your second example still constitutes a "donation," and therefore suffers from the same constraints as a plain vanilla voluntary taxation.

As I said before, until I am given a concrete example of a developed society that thrived without some form of forced public funding to support at least a minimal form of government, I will continue to believe our best alternative is a very limited, decentralized government, for which minimal funding would be needed. I believe that was the system our Founding Parents envisioned and which thrived until around the end of the Industrial Revolution.

So, this is why I would love to have a focused, realistic discussion on taxation and the forms it can take -- including "voluntary" taxation and how perhaps social conditioning could bring it about. But that would be difficult in this group, in my opinion!

Marcy

11

Marcy,

  "I won't support X until I see an example of X in the world" is a classic Catch-22, because how can X occur unless people first support it? If no one believed a new thing was possible until they had seen an example of it in action, there would never be any progress.

  I'm not sure what you mean by a "focused, realistic discussion on taxation" or why you think such a discussion would be difficult for this group. Evidence for the viability of voluntarily-financed government includes the following:

• Any legitimate expenses of government are a tiny fraction of what government spends now, so the system would only need to bring in a relatively small percentage of the present tax take in order to work

• The elimination of coercive taxation would be such a boost to the economy (no more time and effort wasted trying to evade or figure out taxes) that people would tend to be much more financially able to donate

• People at present voluntarily donate billions of dollars a year to all kinds of causes that overlap with things that government does -- health, charity, science, the arts, etc.

• Most members of society think government is necessary and many are fearful of a world without government, so these beliefs would strongly incentivize them to voluntarily support government in order to make sure it didn't disappear

• Even some freedom-minded opponents of government would likely donate just to prove that the voluntary model is viable and prevent society from regressing to a coercive model (I would)

  I'm not sure that most church tithing occurs because people think they would go to hell if they didn't tithe. Public pressure could certainly be a motivating force to get people to voluntarily donate to government. Businesses and other organizations might offer discounts, perks, etc., for those who could provide proof of having paid taxes, prominent public figures who didn't pay might be publicly shamed or embarrassed, etc.

Love & Liberty,
                                  ((( starchild )))

12

To quote my main man, Ron Paul: "I favor a flat tax--set at 0%!"

Warm regards, Michael

13

I agree. I think we must look at the political landscape in terms of contests and not ideology. There is no contest to be had about voluntary taxation and there might be a contest about simplified taxation. But there is a contest about the taxes we have.

Then as a result of the division over contests we don't have, we lose the contests we do have. This is the wages of ideologues.

Then as far as the contests we do have, we must see them in terms of the "Big Contest" between liberty and serfdom and not in terms of the ideology. There is no epic contest about nudity but there is an epic contest about the power of government. Expanding the power of government over nudity, increased serfdom, not liberty. The ideology is immaterial in comparison.

14

Hi Starchild,

Thank you. I like your viability points. However, I feel the points offer mixed messages. For example, #1 is my vision of minimal government. #2 goes back to begging my question as to who would pay without some level of coercion (physical of psychological). #3 is true, but occurs in conjunction with minimal government acting as incentive (tax deductions). #4 & #5 I consider as questionable as #1. Therefore, which path do we choose?

You are entirely correct that for change to occur, someone needs to try something never done before. On the other hand, successful change (that is, change that actually transpired in real life, not just in books) only occurred based on previous developments. We did not go from horse and buggy directly to jet airplanes. We saw that combustion was possible, then we saw that aerodynamics was possible, etc. All steps followed a logical progression.

Where are the comparable developmental examples of a government-less society that would render at least minimal public funding needless? In real life (again, I am not speaking of theories discussed in books), going back to the beginning of time, we have only seen that immediately following the development of any social group, leaders emerge, and enforceable rules designed to support the structure come next.

For example, form a playgroup, and soon there will be the one or two little kids who call the shots, while the others usually find a way to work (or survive) successfully within the structure. I have never been given evidence that this tendency can be erased as these kids grow older.

Thus my point that it makes sense to go by humanity's track record in order to effect change. If we insist on focusing on what has no basis in that track record, we are wasting valuable time. We are fiddling as Rome burns.

Marcy

15

Hi Marcy....with all due respect you might be surprised at what volunteerism can do. It seems to be the wave of the future.

See this article

There's a new San Francisco based internet back that is free unless you decide you want to pay something to use the service. They seek to earn your willingness to pay them.

And Starchild....could you please forward the link to that TED presentation by the artist who only takes voluntary contributions from her audiences? Even my own Socialist Workers Party organizer sister recently said the only way socialism will work is if voluntary. Is volunteerism the way of the future? If so we don't want to date ourselves by attaching the Liberty movement to ideas perhaps destined for the dustbins of history.

Regarding the "horse and buggy directly to jet airplanes" analogy....could this be an issue of "Apples and oranges not the same thing as Fuji apples and Granny apples!". The issue is enslavement or freedom. Where slavery ended, it didn't end by making slaves free for one day a week for a few years, then two days a week for a few more until finally it was phased out in a manner acceptable to the enslavers. It was ended....just like that...because it was the right thing to do and inevitable. The Berlin Wall was not removed by bringing it down a few bricks one year, then a few more bricks the next. And no one suggested it be ended like that. It was down in a blink. The issue is freedom or slavery. There is no middle ground.

The establishment doesn't relinquish power little by little in the manner of one technology replacing another. It seems one day they have it....and the next day they don't. One can wish for gradualism as a path towards freedom if they want, but it isn't the way things work. It seems gradualism only works as a path towards enslavement.

Mike

16

I meant "internet bank" not "back".

Mike

17

Hi Mike,

I am trying to learn here, so I welcome arguments that disagree with mine.

You would be correct in pointing to my mixing apples and oranges if I had ever in this discussion of taxation used the dichotomy of liberty vs tyranny. Such dichotomy relates to ideology, of which I was not speaking.

Your examples of slavery and the Berlin Wall are tempting. However, I have always seen those two events as logical progressions to other economic and political events of the day. For example, the Soviet Union was crumbling slowly but surely way before the Wall came down.

Regarding voluntarism, as you, I would love to see its expansion. But unlike you, I do not see it as realistic means of funding the social group we call "government."

Marcy

18

Thanks Marcy...I suggest the idea of the necessity of using force to fund the "social group we call government", is crumbling like the Berlin Wall and the institution of slavery. It's just a matter of time. That's fine if you want to call it "realistic" to accept its condition on the way down however quickly. But it doesn't seem to deserve any honor as a position to be emulated especially when contrasted with Liberty.

Mike

19

Mike,

I will keep your thoughts in mind, as well as Starchild's. I have been trying to separate ideology (liberty vs tyranny) from social structure, but will accept that for so many of us on this list that is not possible. That is why my original post indicated my doubts that a discussion focused on social structure only would be possible.

Liberty is our ideology. Developing realistic means to improve our social structure in order to achieve as much liberty as possible should be our plan of action. I see a lot of interesting discussion about the former, and not much at all about the latter. Well, that's us!

Marcy

20

Marcy,

You wrote: "Since the idea of the Outreach is educational…" Can I assume, therefore, literature on ending taxation and replacing it with a free society would be appropriate?

Warm regards, Michael

Oops, I neglected to answer the second part of your post, Starchild. Sorry. Marty apparently is the local representative of Fair Tax California (thus his insertion of the paragraph on the Fair Tax). I guess they are promoting the Fair Tax bills now in the California Legislature.

Since the idea of the Outreach is educational, literature on the Fair Tax, along with other forms of funding civil society, would be appropriate (including the part in the Fair Tax about items purchased for business, export, or investment being exempt).

Marcy