It's an interesting question, about taxes. As it is, I do accept the right of governments to impose taxes, even in cases where the individual in question benefits less from the services of the government than the amount that they pay out in taxes.
I wonder why that is -- I may need to think about this for a while to unpack exactly what my thinking and feeling is.
Is there a qualitative difference between actual work, especially dangerous work such as carrying a baby, and money, which, at some level of abstraction, can be considered a tangible representation of work? I feel that there is such a distinction, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is. For one thing, I feel that governments can have the right to regulate commercial transactions to a much higher degree than other forms of interpersonal contact. So I need to see where that comes from, and under what theory THAT holds up.
One distinction is that money can be made through investment rather than through direct work -- one could make an argument that capital gains taxes, for instance, were moral, while income taxes were not -- income taxes are based on a method of gaining money which is more directly tied to work. I'm not prepared to make that distinction -- if only because I DO feel that income taxes are moral.
I'm going to have to think about this further. If I come up with anything brilliant, I'll let you know.
As far as Roe v. Wade -- I disagree that it's necessarily best left as a state-by-state situation. Primarily because the arguments against legal abortion AND against the restriction of legal abortion are both so clearly based on fundamental questions of morality. It seems to me that, since the Civil War, at least, we've had an argument that an issue can be so clearly morally based that the society as a whole has a say in defining itself as one which allows or disallows an action.
I argue that restriction of abortion is so clearly immoral that our country must not condone the restriction of abortion. Others argue that abortion is so clearly immoral that our country must not condone it.
In either case, a state-by-state solution is unfeasable.
I could see a limited way in which someone could be considered responsible for a child that he didn't father: if you consider a marriage contract to be a contract of mutual support between two people, and one of those people incurs the liability of a child, I could see an argument that BOTH parties in the marriage contract have incurred the liability. I'm not absolutlely convinced by this argument -- for one thing, unless otherwise specified, a marriage contract is ALSO assumed to include the stipulation that neither party WILL procreate outside the partnership, and I think it'd be totally reasonable to argue that, if YOU break THAT part of the contract, I'M allowed to break THIS part of it.
I believe that drug use, suicide, and prostitution should be legal, and I'm against helmet laws -- I'm also against most drug use, most cases of suicide, the way that street prostituion works, and riding motorcycles or bicycles without helmets, but I feel that the law isn't the right tool to deal with the situations.
One of the difficulties that the United States has as a culture is that we have too few tools for regulating behavior. All we've got are laws, the tort system, and a limited degree of government regulation. And that's simply not enough to run a healthy society. Because there are plenty of things that MUST be regulated by a society, but which must NOT be regulated by any of those tools. And our culture lacks pretty much any other tools.
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Date: 2006-02-01 03:20 pm (UTC)I wonder why that is -- I may need to think about this for a while to unpack exactly what my thinking and feeling is.
Is there a qualitative difference between actual work, especially dangerous work such as carrying a baby, and money, which, at some level of abstraction, can be considered a tangible representation of work? I feel that there is such a distinction, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is. For one thing, I feel that governments can have the right to regulate commercial transactions to a much higher degree than other forms of interpersonal contact. So I need to see where that comes from, and under what theory THAT holds up.
One distinction is that money can be made through investment rather than through direct work -- one could make an argument that capital gains taxes, for instance, were moral, while income taxes were not -- income taxes are based on a method of gaining money which is more directly tied to work. I'm not prepared to make that distinction -- if only because I DO feel that income taxes are moral.
I'm going to have to think about this further. If I come up with anything brilliant, I'll let you know.
As far as Roe v. Wade -- I disagree that it's necessarily best left as a state-by-state situation. Primarily because the arguments against legal abortion AND against the restriction of legal abortion are both so clearly based on fundamental questions of morality. It seems to me that, since the Civil War, at least, we've had an argument that an issue can be so clearly morally based that the society as a whole has a say in defining itself as one which allows or disallows an action.
I argue that restriction of abortion is so clearly immoral that our country must not condone the restriction of abortion. Others argue that abortion is so clearly immoral that our country must not condone it.
In either case, a state-by-state solution is unfeasable.
I could see a limited way in which someone could be considered responsible for a child that he didn't father: if you consider a marriage contract to be a contract of mutual support between two people, and one of those people incurs the liability of a child, I could see an argument that BOTH parties in the marriage contract have incurred the liability. I'm not absolutlely convinced by this argument -- for one thing, unless otherwise specified, a marriage contract is ALSO assumed to include the stipulation that neither party WILL procreate outside the partnership, and I think it'd be totally reasonable to argue that, if YOU break THAT part of the contract, I'M allowed to break THIS part of it.
I believe that drug use, suicide, and prostitution should be legal, and I'm against helmet laws -- I'm also against most drug use, most cases of suicide, the way that street prostituion works, and riding motorcycles or bicycles without helmets, but I feel that the law isn't the right tool to deal with the situations.
One of the difficulties that the United States has as a culture is that we have too few tools for regulating behavior. All we've got are laws, the tort system, and a limited degree of government regulation. And that's simply not enough to run a healthy society. Because there are plenty of things that MUST be regulated by a society, but which must NOT be regulated by any of those tools. And our culture lacks pretty much any other tools.