Say @gerv curious how, in principle, do you consider taxes for public education?
I would hope that as human beings we always have something to offer to the job market but there is a clear trend towards de-skilling which tends to remove the need for those in charge of the means of production to pay for people as the source of production. I may have shown my links to socialism in that last sentence, I donāt apologise for that we need to redefine society such that it can cope with situations where fewer people have direct employment.
I may need to work more on my skills as a musician and less on those as an engineer for example. My brother is now suffering because he trained as a printer, big jobs such as magazines and newspapers. We now all use on-line sources, mainly, for our news so itās not a job in demand and having being made redundant recently he is struggling to find suitable employment.
I may need to work more on my skills as a musician and less on those as an engineer for example
Jupp, and generally, there is still a lot of very important and challenging social work to do for humansā¦the problem there is how to fit it into our economyā¦just think of how crucial it is to educate and teach children, and how shitty the pay for such a job is.
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oldgeek: if we get into all my political views this thread might explode 
But I believe that God has appointed three spheres of authority - family, church and state. (Society is an extension of āfamilyā.) They need to be balanced as he has outlined; if one of them takes on roles appropriate to another, bad things result. And I think education is a family (as opposed to state) responsibility, as is the welfare of people in the community. Valid state responsibilities centre on making sure justice is done and restraining evil (so police, courts, law, army etc.).
@gerv
ok, so the police department belongs to āstateāā¦and it would be ok for the state to tax citizens to pay the local police personell, right?
But fire department belongs to the extended family, right? Should therefore not be be payed from taxes but from what the local communtity thinks to be neccesary?
And where do large companies like say āCoca Colaā fit in?
Could/should they be taxed as companies (rather than income-taxing their employees)?
(edit: Iām genuinely curious how this could come together in a practical sense, independently of who might have made the appointment)
Like I said, I am wary of hijacking the Bad Voltage board for an extended political discussion on topics not raised in the showā¦ but yes, taxing to pay for police personnel is fine. People vary about fire protection; private enterprise fire protection has worked in the past, so it is feasible. Iād say itās an edge case, and as itāll be a long, long time before society gets to be anything like what Iāve described, we can safely sort it out later when we see what the rest looks like!
As for which taxes are best and the best way to levy them, I have fewer strong opinions about that. Some random thoughts: from a practical perspective, corporate taxes are providing difficult to collect in todayās world so it may be wiser to tax another way. But given that the government currently takes close to 35% of GDP in taxation, and if its scope were reduced to what I say it would be well south of 10%, Iām less fussed about how exactly they come up with it as however they do it, the change will seem like a massive relief! VAT is regressive so not a great idea. Wealth taxes like inheritance tax (āwe are taxing you because youāve got moneyā) are envy-based and should be avoided. Flat per-head taxes, in reasonable amounts, are a good way of showing people that everyone should contribute to services everyone benefits from.
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no need to be wary on this topic; discuss it, definitely. (We have talked in the past about treating this topic, and this discussion thatās going on will feed into future considerations of whether we should talk about it on the show.)
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Absolutely. I find it sad when parents abdicate their responsibility to educate their children to the schools. Many donāt realize that education begins at infancy. Many problems in this world can be linked to people not having any morals instilled in them by their parents. And then, society tries to pass it off as a mental issue. I have admired parents, who did not learn to read or write, that would be fiercely determined that their children would be educated. Making sure that their school work would be done, keeping in contact with teachers to see what they, the parents, need to do to see to their childās education. Some would even become educated themselves more for the sake of their children than for their own benefit. They show an example that all parents do well to imitate. And I do admire parents who are able to home school. That takes a big commitment. It has been easier here recently that the school district will provide programs for parents to help home schooling.
You may find it interesting to research what the first century Christians, the āprimitive churchā, relationship to the state was.
On the topic of redistributive taxation as a method of redistributing wealth, providing public help to someone.
If we want to be energy efficient, we have to invest in miners, or nuclear powerplant workers, or engineers who work on renewable energy resources, and dam maintainers and such. If we let a key skillset die, weāre putting ourselves at disadvantage. If any kind of international player does that, he sets himself up for a defeat.
Lumping things together as ātheftā seems needlessly reductive to me. Human societies are more complex than that and by attempting to cack-handedly boil it down to something so polarised we lose all scope for nuance.
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And to add to that, theft implies the original owner gains nothing, a win-lose scenario. Taxation, while probably no one really likes it, does provide at least something in return, be it public safety, education, other social benefits.
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And if the community surrounding the people who are unemployed, disabled, pregnant are vegans? Pagans? Scientologists? Jehovahās Witnesses? Wahhabists? Taliban? ISIS?
Iām being deadly serious. What if the community surrounding some of the people you mention are from a group who believe strong-mindedly to various extremes in unified goals? Who want to end the destruction of animals. Who want to destroy psychiatry. Who want to punish women for no other reason than their gender. Who want to bring about the end of times. How does your neat little utopian view slot into these scenarios?
Trained to work in an abattoir? Shit, sorry, your skills have no use in our fruitopian future. Or maybe they do, in our dystopian land where we punish the disabled by ending their lives.
Government, as I repeatedly say, is about compromise. The fact that we have a progressive tax system in this country, which enables us to feed, clothe, house and educate those who, in many cases, literally have nothing, is remarkable, and if one of the most charitable things a citizen can do is to give up a portion of our earnings to help those more needy than ourselves, and help provide a modern civilised society around us? I do that gladly.
Compromise.
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And yes, I think youāre trolling, because youāre using a rather narrow definition of trolling. Some trolls set out a very carefully constructed argument, intended specifically to incite the largest reaction.
At the risk of upsetting several people here who is God and why do you think he/she/it exists? The church is an instrument of the state put here to control the masses to behave how they want us to.
I am not trying here to understand your definition of God here, but while several options are available whether you are a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist or a Jew, a Catholic a Christian or a Jain: Thereās a universal solder who will fight for any cause and he thinks heāll bring an end to war that way.
Apologies to Buffy Sainte Marie for the end of that last paragraph but the point being itās us living today who must decide how we treat each other and to what extent we help each other out or force others to fend for themselves.
Iāve already said in this thread that Iām not advocating anybody gets a free ride but we have a moral duty to care for each other.
Iām not convinced @gerv is being a troll here because I believe these are honestly stated views though I hope most of us disagree with them. Clearly @neuro your views are closer to mine than his though Iām not sure yet if we chime totally.
I was first reluctant to write it because I think I might be biased in @gerv 's favorā¦cause TBH, I think without his reply this quite interesting if unexpected thread would be belly-up in the water, right from the start.
IMHO believing that there is the one God and he/she has a plan with us is not in a different order of madness than having children or even simply getting up in the morning. Iām not a religious person, but I donāt think that religious people are generally less rational than agnostics (to which i count myself), atheists or people who believe in the string theory. I imagine that believing in a loving God itās not totally dissimilar to a general feeling of confidence.
Also to gervās credit, he did not write something like āletās cut off redistributive taxing now, it will be great because God will sort it outāā¦to me it seems that itās just the way he hopes our societies to be able to function one day.
IMHO believing that there is the one God and he/she has a plan with us is not in a different order of madness than having children or even simply getting up in the morning.
To be more specific, IMHO this quote from the first episode of true detective sais it all from a purely rational standpoint. So Iām just happy that i have something different than pure rationality to live with 
.
To be clear I am not and never have been in any way religious, I do not accept the concept of any God much less subscribe to any one faith. As an atheist I believe this gives me a bigger need to get this life right as āitās the only one we haveā.
That said most people have some sort of faith and if @gerv 's faith helps him then I have no problem with that. Iām just pointing out that, for me at least, an appeal to a āhigher powerā does nothing to forward his argument.
I continue to support him in expressing his views, and you are correct without him this thread would have been dull, because I believe they are honest. It is through argument that we explore the possibilities and while I hope you find mine more convincing anybody here finding themselves more aligned with those of @gerv is free to do so. This is the point of democracy.
One vision of the perfect society is that it should be run by a wise, benign, loving dictator. Problem is how do we decide who this is? Democracy is not perfect but is the best solution we have found so far.
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I donāt want to assume anything, so I ask, were you wanting a discussion or was that more of a rhetorical question?
It is interesting that the Bible describes religion in general as a prostitute riding a political beast. The two have always been together. What you said reflects Karl Marx in saying āreligion is the opium of the people.ā
At the point of writing this was intended as rhetorical but if you want to discuss this further I am happy to. Perhaps this should be a different thread however as this one is more about the politics of what role, if any, should the state have in supporting the less well off and when taxation is legitimate.
It does seem that digressions are my specialty! 