From: mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.marrou,alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Taxation without Representation (Was: Re: NPR, Marrou and the U.S. Constitution)
Date: 17 Nov 1992 22:13:40 GMT
Organization: CenterLine Software, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 140.239.2.36

In article <1992Nov12.031000.12506@telesciences.com> msavasti@telesciences.com (Michael Savastio) writes:
>In article <1dbb4lINN59n@armory.centerline.com>, mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov3.002719.4221@telesciences.com> msavasti@telesciences.com (Michael Savastio) writes:
>>>
>>>In article <1992Oct25.024349.28577@tamsun.tamu.edu>, rdubbs@cs.tamu.edu (Roger B. Dubbs III) writes:
>>>Summary: Taxation without representation isn't so bad after all.
>>
>>Have you read the rest of the constitution?  You have representatives in
>>congress.
>>
>>In my public school social studies classes, we would have failed for merely
>>asserting something like that.  As in math classes, we were penalized for
>>not showing the work we had done to reach our results.
>
>Okay; if this is a test, then here's my work:
[Lengthy, labored example omitted.]
>...  This is why I consider the 16th Amendment to be a slap in
>the face of the ideals that gave rise to the independence of our country.
>I don't think Patrick Henry would have failed me if he were my teacher.

Not in the least.  Those same founding ideals allowed ANY form of taxation
by the states.  If the founders were as vehemently against uneven taxes
as you like to believe, they would have proscribed such taxes in the
Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

The example provided lumped all rich people into one state, and then claimed
that rich people were not represented in an income tax situtation because they
would not be able to outvote the majority.  Yet in the same example, he puts
the poor in a separate state as well: if they were using a proportional head
tax as originally in the constitution, then you could just as easily
claim that the poor (who could least afford it) were unrepresented.

We do have taxation with representation.  Our current system is not
comparable to the pre-revolutionary system, where there was no
representation in the British Government.

>>[...]                There may even be a legal presumption that services
>>of the government are the just compensation for taxation, though that is
>>speculation on my part.
>
>This sounds like a reasonable presumption if you omit the word "just".
>Nobody can argue that the services that I, a single, middle-class working
>stiff, receive are just compensation for the taxes I pay...

Gee, all the healthy people grumble about how much health insurance costs,
but few would willingly forego it.  And that in a "competitive" industry.

Sorry, but you're "just" a whiner.  You're using a vast amount of
infrastructure, you've probably consumed a large amount of government
subsidized education, and a whole raft of other things you're probably
not counting because everybody else receives them too.  And it is
statistically likely that you will be qualified to receive compensation
such as social security.  [HOT BUTTON ALERT: BEWARE OF FROTHING LIBERTARIANS]

>>I also think that "just compensation" has been found to be whatever is
>>legislated by your representatives (subject to judicial review), rather than
>>what the owner thinks is just.
>
>I'm sure it is, but this pretty much renders the 5th Amendment meaningless.
>Suppose they define "just compensation" to mean "The guarantee of a stable
>society brought about through a contented Legislature, the members of
>which shall receive an exponential salary increase as a reward for their
>services in governing a free people"?  They could remove all services
>altogether, tax 100% of our salaries, and still feel that they have
>satisfied the requirements of the 5th Amendment.

That's the idea behind a free people being able to control their own
government.  It's risky, because they might do something stupid like your
example, or something else stupid, like adopting libertarianism.  The
founding fathers and authors of the constitution intended for the government
to be able to evolve.  Searching for security in stasis is a path to
competitive failure.

Mike Huben

The primary tool of science is skepticism, whose light shrivels
unquestioning faith.
				Mike Huybensz