[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Sounds good to me ;)
Jeme A Brelin
jeme at brelin.net
Wed Jun 19 01:43:43 UTC 2002
On Tue, 18 Jun 2002, Craighead, Scot D wrote:
> >The tax on tobacco is a tax levied to compensate the rest of the public
> >for the burden of supporting the minority that choose to pollute
> >themselves and others.
>
> This is all bolagna. That is the retorate that they use to justify it.
I can't, for the life of me, figure out what you mean by "retorate".
Do you mean "rhetoric"? If not, let me know.
> Where does the money go? Into the state's general fund were it is
> used for many other purposes.
Is it really meaningful to track a particular dollar from source to
destination like that? Is it not enough to say, "tobacco sales and use
make many state services more expensive. We will levy a tax commensurate
with the additional expense and add it to the general fund."?
I think that's fine. It's impossible to say that careless smokers
contribute EXACTLY THIS MUCH to litter clean-up costs and EXACTLY THIS
MUCH to highway rescue operations and road repair and smoking, in general,
costs EXACTLY THIS MUCH to health and occupational insurance costs. That
kind of enumeration, even if it could be done, would likely leave out some
areas where smoking is costing the state or municipality money and there
would be a shortfall. Broad strokes are much more practicable and the
harm is less than the gain.
> The truth is states have been raising tobacco tax because it is less
> of a political liability than other taxes that are paid by everyone.
I can see that, too. Sometimes I think we should get rid of all of the
so-called "sin taxes" for the same reason that I think we should abolish
fines as criminal penalty and pollution taxes: They make government
dependent on the very practices it is trying to discourage.
> No, Russell said I was saying that. What I was saying is that if a
> majority of people want something and a minority do not, the majority
> will win.
Did someone try to assert otherwise?
I think Russell was trying to show that your membership in or the
existence of an english-speaking majority doesn't make it right to impose
your way of life on the minority.
> This is impossible. There is never a concensus on anything. No
> matter what you propose, someone will always oppose it.
Did you come to Ward's talk at the PLUG meeting about WikiWikiWeb?
Ward has proven that consensus is attainable and he has built a tool that
makes reaching consensus fast and easy.
(And boyo, you should have heard the gasps and questions when people's
indoctrination started coming to the surface! "You mean it isn't defaced
all the time?" "What happens when someone just destroys what someone else
has written?" "How do you prevent abuse?" "What administration tools do
you use that give you special privileges?" The answer to those questions
were, in order: "No. Never." "They don't." "I don't, but it doesn't
happen." and "None. Nobody has any power than anyone else, including
me.")
> >I don't see how a republic with majority-elected (supposedly)
> >representative legislators solves any of the problems of minority
> >oppression or exploitation or consolidation, abuse, and corruption of
> >power that comes from any other kind of tyranny.
>
> That's why we have to have the Bill of Rights.
Someone needs to point out that it's not working.
J.
--
-----------------
Jeme A Brelin
jeme at brelin.net
-----------------
[cc] counter-copyright
http://www.openlaw.org
More information about the PLUG-talk
mailing list