Tax cut for selling land to conservationists isn't bad (was: LAND GRAB VOTE IN 4 HOURS)

Rob wrote:

The Libertarian solution

to these things is not to defend the government's
"social engineering" via the IRS. <<

I disagree, and apparently, so does Ron Paul. He has advocated
tax cuts for special groups, (e.g., the elderly, parents sending kids
to private schools, and others), as a means of decreasing legalized
theft.

Best, Michael

Ron Paul's supporting parents and the elderly is hardly bowing to special
interests. School vouchers that aren't means-tested are actually a
rejection of the current unequal taxation/benefit where the rich pay
disproportionately into public school systems that their children rarely
use. Similarly, not double-taxing the elderly on their retirement funds is
a rejection of redistribution of wealth. Anyway, I think you're putting
words into Ron Paul's mouth. His recent commentary on income tax credits
for the poor shows that he is still a libertarian and rejects the Left's
social engineering policies:
http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2003/tst061603.htm

I'm sorry, but I just can't bring myself to value other things above equal
treatment under the law. That's why I'd favor a 15% flat tax for everyone
before supporting a 80% tax on the rich while the majority of us had our
income taxes repealed. That's also why I favor passing laws that would
cause government to regulate marriages of gay people over the current
non-recognition by the government of same-sex couples. Of course,
eliminating all income taxes and all government meddling in marriage would
be ideal. But that ideal isn't likely happening in my lifetime. So
equality is the best I can hope for.

The reason I value equality under the law so highly is that it is a natural
check on the power of government. Which do you think is better, Michael, a
set of airline regulations where only Arabs have their person and property
searched, or a set of airline regulations where all races are subject to the
same humiliating searches? If it were only the single digit percentage of
the popluation that is Arab that were facing these stupid searches, there
would be absolutely no outcry from the public and therefore no revolt at the
polls to tell the politicians that what they did was wrong. And,
technically, almost all of us would have greater freedom in our lives under
that form of government discrimination. However, since everyone, from Bill
Gates to Hillary Clinton to the hippie war protestors to the white
separatist gun nuts, faces the same intrusive searches, there's an automatic
limit on what Ashcroft and his cronies can get away with.

That's why I most strongly favor "equality under the law" over tax cuts,
reductions in regulation, and many other secondary issues I support as a
Libertarian. Legalized theft alone is bad. But legalized theft when it's
used to descriminate against certain classes (such as for-profit businesses)
is far, far worse, IMHO.

Rob

[mailto:dredelstein@…]

Rob,

  Actually, if it were only Arab-Americans being subjected to airline searches, while the rest of us were not, I can guarantee you that a whole LOT of people who are relatively silent about current airport searches would be making quite an outcry (ACLU, Arab American groups, Muslim groups, newspaper editorial writers, pundits, Democrat politicians, foreign governments, etc.). If any administration were dumb enough to enact such a policy, I suspect it wouldn't last long. Equality of oppression doesn't necessarily produce more favorable circumstances for a return to liberty. In fact I would suggest that inequality of oppression tends to draw attention to it.

Yours in liberty,
            <<< Starchild >>>

On Thursday, September 4, 2003, at 11:11 PM, Rob Power wrote (in part):

I disagree. Because the masses are usually unwilling to educate themselves
about those things outside their immediate sphere, "sharing the pain" is one
of the few ways to educate them about government abuse. All those Arab and
civil libertarian groups you mentioned HAVE been extremely active since the
new rules went into place, claiming (I have no proof one way or the other)
that the secret computer programs that supposedly pick us randomly for those
searches are actualy skewed to pick Arabs more. But nobody cares.

Similarly, how many people in America know that the gay partner of a sick
person isn't considered "family" for the purposes of hospital visits
throughout most of America? I'd say less than 10 percent. How many people
would know very quickly the "spouse only" rights if suddenly all of the
married couples lost those rights so that they had to endure the same
oppression as gay couples? (Of course, if we did get rid of state marriage
overnight, the hospitals would quickly change their rules because of the
outcry, and gay couples would benefit.

It's idealistic to think that people pay more attention to the unjustice of
unequal oppression. Maybe you do, and that's why you're Starchild. But
you're in a very small percentage (I'd say single digits) of Americans who
actually believe the whole "injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere"
thing. That's why most of the public has no problem with American
presidents bombing brown people, including women and children, but gets very
upset if a white separatist in a cabin has his wife and children killed by
government snipers. Equality of benefit and equality of pain is the only
way to ensure that voters know that high taxes are bad by definition and
that excessive regulation is bad by definition. We surely can't rely on the
media or the educational institutions to teach them such things.

Rob