A serious question for all pro-gun folk here.

[Scary Guy]

If they don't contribute then thats fine, they just shouldn't be surprised when the firemen let their houses burn down because they haven't paid for the service. Maybe then they'd learn not to be so cheap.

Then again I don't have health insurance because I don't care. Last time I told them I didn't have any money and to just let me die. Now I owe them money that they aren't going to get. Maybe next time they'll listen to me.

[Psychoholic]

Graduated is fine. I'd argue that most are fine until they start to gouge you. If it were more reasonalble you wouldn't have as many tax dodgers or people complaining about it.

The problem is that reasonable and the government never go together.

There is also the idea that people of privilege feel a sense of entitlement that other people don't quite get. I work in IT and I see people every single day of my life bitch and complain about how little they make (which is TOTAL AND UTTER BULLSHIT), and they develop this 'it's not my responsibility' mentality. And these folks don't even crest the top 5% of earners line. Take your average BMW driver in traffic and think 'this person is expected to contribute a fair percentage of their income'.

[Scary Guy]

Graduated is fine. I'd argue that most are fine until they start to gouge you. If it were more reasonalble you wouldn't have as many tax dodgers or people complaining about it.

The problem is that reasonable and the government never go together.

[Dickey]

If you want to get a tax revolt started lay out your plan. I am all ears.
I wish we could get the fair tax.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServ...owFairTaxWorks

I don't want to get a tax revolt started. I like the system well enough to keep supporting it with regular payments the same as you.

Moving a bit off tangent, and ignoring the fact that I do believe income/sales taxes are fundamentally evil, I do not believe the fair tax outlined in your referenced link is actually fair or ideal. As a private individual I started out earning almost nothing. When I was earning this meager salary, I paid almost nothing in taxes. That allowed me to focus more of my efforts towards purchasing goods and services that would help me make more of myself and hopefully start earning more as well. Fast forward 15 years and I'm earning a little over $40 an hour as opposed to the $4.25 an hour where I started. I'm ok with paying more of a percentage in taxes of these greater earnings because those who came before me were paying a greater percentage of their higher earnings to afford me enough of a shelter that I could focus on bettering myself as well as I did.

From a free market investment perspective; a graduated system makes the most sense because the society does not take very much from the initial principle (worker starting out) and allows it to mature more quickly to reap a greater return on the investment. I don't believe anyone can honestly claim they are a success in a vacuum so I think there is a very real social responsibility from each of us to everyone else in this regard and it is not improper to look at our professional selves as investments within our current free market society.

[ryan_ricks]

interesting article about this very topic:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/hit_us_with_your_best_shot_andy_5rxZg0gYBJJhkLBtiTPMfJ

[ryan_ricks]

i am all for free trade and open markets, but i would be willing to pay more for consumer electronics and other imported items if that meant less or no income taxes.

[sgath92]

If you want to get a tax revolt started lay out your plan. I am all ears.
I wish we could get the fair tax.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServ...owFairTaxWorks

I would settle for going back to using tariffs to fund the federal government. No income taxes. Buy something made in the US, no tax. Buy something made outside the US? Tax is built into the price making it higher [because of the tariff].

Worked fine for over a hundred years. Even after the income tax was started, the government was funded mostly through protectionist policies for decades.

[Un]fair trade, OTOH, forces American workers to compete globally head-to-head against whoever will do the same job for the least amount of money, like some Chinese prisoner, African children, starving haitians, etc. & shifts the burden of how the government is funded to things like income taxes.

While we're talking economics; two fed chairmans in a row have said that the fed intentionally tries to keep unemployment higher than the market would otherwise be creating in order to drive down wages & make American goods more competitive globally. This runs contrary to the charter that established the fed, with the goal of keeping inflation & unemployment low [in that order].

Race to the bottom? Sure looks like it.

[LMS]

a georgia sherrif signed onto the "revolt"

http://hollysprings.patch.com/articl...utional-rights

Seems to be catching on across the country, awesome!

[LMS]

If you want to get a tax revolt started lay out your plan. I am all ears.
I wish we could get the fair tax.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServ...owFairTaxWorks

[Dickey]

It depends, are you doing it through a donation or a tax?

The first is support and the second is robbery through threat of force.

That's my point. Most people are unwilling to make the government take something and prefer to willingly give it up. Bitching about giving a no good drunk of an uncle money every week for booze and smokes is still enabling and support.

[ryan_ricks]

a georgia sherrif signed onto the "revolt"

http://hollysprings.patch.com/articles/garrison-won-t-enforce-any-new-laws-that-negate-constitutional-rights

[LMS]

the second is robbery through threat of force.

This, completely. I look for every tax break I can find when doing my taxes, and bitch about it the whole time.
In this area we are headed right down the toilet as a nation.

[Scary Guy]

If you had to categorize the act of sending an entity money on a regular basis, what verb would you use?

It depends, are you doing it through a donation or a tax?

The first is support and the second is robbery through threat of force.

[Dickey]

I don't actively support the government, I write letters and cast votes in hope of stopping, or at least slowing down the madness.

...

So don't come at me with this "You actively support the government that is doing this to other citizens of this country" BS, because it doesn't hold water with me.

If you had to categorize the act of sending an entity money on a regular basis, what verb would you use?

[LMS]

Communication only works when it's not monitored/shut down by the government

I have been thinking about that lately. If we beat this round of anti gun measures it will be because of the internet really. Word spread so fast this time through social media that members of congress have been flooded with e-mails, phone calls, and letters to the point they can't even respond, they just keep a tally.
In 94 there was no internet as we know it today, word spread slowly and there wasn't time for the public to react.
So if we beat it this time you can bet in the next few years they will come after control of the internet even harder.

They'd just take out your house with a drone strike.

If it reaches that point we would already be in full civil war like many of the countries in the mid east and I doubt I would be in my house.