California Considers Placing A Mileage Tax On Drivers

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jfz178 said:
Private fire departments usually have a deal with an insurance company. If you buy the insurance, they respond to your fire for free. If you have a government run department, it still costs the same, but the taxpayers pay for it. Taxpayers wind up paying the $20,000, and more, over time, whether they have a fire or not.
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I don’t believe you have the data to back up that assertion.
 
If the government lets it out, double the price for the exact same bridge.
 
Oh I guess I did. You’re talking about conversational charity like you calling me a @!*# Okay. Glad we figured it out!
 
You obvioualy don’t know much about building infrastructure. I’ve been doing it most of my life.
 
The common good. That’s where people who don’t earn money force people who do earn money to provide for them. Right? AKA legal stealing, AKA socialism.
 
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He also said to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s…in other words: pay your taxes and obey lawful government.
 
Fire departments are a REALLY bad idea for privatizing in any sort of urban area. My apartment building is literally connected to the next one, and that one only has a few feet between it and the next building. Once a fire gets big it’s almost impossible to keep it from spreading. So if my neighbor decides not to pay for the fire department, either I have to pay for their fire protection, or I have to risk having my house burned down because the fire’s too big to stop by the time it starts jumping to my building. So my neighbor’s refusal to contribute to fire protection endangers my property. Wildfires can do the same, if you’re in an area with the sort of land to get those.

Schools are, I think, also a bad example. Children are obviously not paying taxes, nor can they reasonably be expected to be responsible for their own financial situation. A lack of education hardly disposes a child to a successful life ahead of them as a productive member of society. There has to be a limit on how much we allow children to suffer for the poverty of their parents, or we end up creating a permanent underclass with little hope of bettering their lives.
 
Lemuel said:
You obvioualy don’t know much about building infrastructure. I’ve been doing it most of my life.
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Appeal to authority fallacy, where you are the authority???
jfz178 said:
The common good. That’s where people who don’t earn money force people who do earn money to provide for them. Right? AKA legal stealing, AKA socialism.
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If you want to know what the common good is, read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. A remarkable document, really! The common good is mentioned a lot, and it doesn’t seem to be what you say.
 
The idea of the common good isn’t about forcing people to provide for others. It’s about making sure everyone has a reasonable chance to provide for themselves as far as is possible for them. If as a poor person, I can’t go out and get a job that I can support myself on, and be able to get myself to and from that job, then we have an issue. The fix for that issue is providing the infrastructure (such as public education and public roads) where I actually have a chance to do that. But if I have to pay for the roads out of my own pocket, and pay for my own primary schooling, and all that sort of thing, I’m not going to be able to provide for myself because it will cost more money than I have to get myself into a position where someone wants to hire me.

People don’t realize how interdependent modern society actually is. Unless you live on your own farm producing your own food and clothing from seeds you found on your own and animals you caught and tamed on your own, you’re not truly independent. You’re relying on someone else to hire you and pay you a living wage, someone to build a house you can afford and sell it, someone to produce safe food and provide clean water to you for purchase, all that sort of thing.

If no one was willing to hire you unless you spent money out of your own pocket first, where do you think you would end up if you didn’t have that money? You don’t want to create a situation where you need a job before you can get a job.
 
DarkLight said:
The idea of the common good isn’t about forcing people to provide for others.
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So if it’s not about forcing, you’re OK if someone opts out of paying taxes for providing for the common good if they want to? Right?

Because if someone forces you to pay, it is no different than an “unemployed” person sticking a gun in your face and demanding your wallet. Well, I take that back, it is different. The robber gets all your money. With tax and spend, the government and it’s minions get a big cut and it doesn’t get managed properly.
 
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My quibble was with the “provide for others” bit. My point is, it’s not accurate to say you’re simply being pushed to “provide for others”. What actually happens is you have a society of haves who get to provide for themselves, and have-nots who don’t, unless someone steps in and makes sure the have-nots aren’t left out. Talk about “forcing someone to provide for others” is meaningless if you make no account of how those others are able to provide for themselves.

Government doesn’t exist without force - if government doesn’t step in, private individuals or corporations will find a way to deploy force. Is it any less force if someone comes to me and says “if you don’t meet all my demands you will get no food or shelter, and we have no concern if you freeze or starve” than if someone forces me at gunpoint, if you have no option to actually get out of the situation?

I also feel the need to point out that it’s actually pretty well established in Catholic theology that I can take things from other people if I need to take basic care of myself or my dependents. My right to be able to feed and clothe and shelter myself trumps your right to your property.
 
That I was wondering about. Particularly since, as has come up on other threads, being poor generally means living farther away from work and having less access to reliable public transportation.

I’m not really convinced it’s a good law from that point of view. But that has nothing to do with arguments about taxation in general being bad and everything with the idea that taxing people who already have less money doesn’t work well.
 
Or they would behave like people in east coast States do and dive miles out of their ways to avoid toll roads, thus putting more wear and tear on those roads, along with their cars (more miles along with damage to their tires and axles).
 
I think in this case, a distinction needs to be drawn between a private entity under contract to the government to provide a service, and an entity that provides the service directly to paying consumers. Privatized ambulances generally fall under the former.

On another note, I actually like what the DC area is doing. There’s special toll lanes that are faster than the regular lanes, and you can pay extra money to be allowed to drive in those lanes. Or if you have over a certain number of passengers you can use them for free.
 
DarkLight said:
it’s actually pretty well established in Catholic theology that I can take things from other people if I need to take basic care of myself or my dependents. My right to be able to feed and clothe and shelter myself trumps your right to your property.
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Okay, I get it. So if both me and my neighbor were on the verge of starvation, but my neighbor happened to obtain a loaf of bread, I’m justified in stealing that loaf of bread to preserve my own life, even if it causes my neighbor to die.

Survival of the fittest . . .
 
Lemuel said:
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DarkLight:
it’s actually pretty well established in Catholic theology that I can take things from other people if I need to take basic care of myself or my dependents. My right to be able to feed and clothe and shelter myself trumps your right to your property.
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Okay, I get it. So if both me and my neighbor were on the verge of starvation, but my neighbor happened to obtain a loaf of bread, I’m justified in stealing that loaf of bread to preserve my own life, even if it causes my neighbor to die.

Survival of the fittest . . .
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Not quite. You cannot take from another if it would mean their doom. You can’t end their life to save yours. This is more along the lines of “Hey, this guy over here is hoarding bread and water, and is unwilling to share it with people who are literally starving to death.” In those cases, it is morally permissible to take bread to feed yourself and your family, so long as you do not harm the other person, or leave them without enough to live off of.

Also, keep in mind that this principle only deals with the basic necessities such as food, clothing, and water. It does not extend to money or any other material goods. It is also only applicable in life-or-death situations, and cannot cause real harm to the other. As I said, you can’t take so much that the other person is left without the means to survive themselves.
 
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