Devising the best taxation

Wha-what? Failure? Unconstitutional?It really is a different universe you guys inhabit over there, NJ.

Is that a failure of the IRS? They don't set tax rates. They collect taxes. Seems like they've been succeeding in doing that, unless you're a corporation these days. There are no socialist nations. Not on Planet Earth, anyway. Not sure where you're living these days, honestly. "On the books"? It's on the Constitution, NJ. A great document. Maybe you could read it and its amendments, sometime?

Maybe we're operating from two different definitions of the term "socialist."I'm not saying that those nations don't have well-developed public services - they do and we should emulate them here - but it's only under the ridiculous redefinitions of conservatives that those nations could be considered "socialist."Socialism is:

quote:

---

a broad array of ideologies and political movements with the goal of a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality and cooperation.

---

Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are capitalist nations that include socialist programs in their government. Unless I'm very much mistaken, citizens of Sweded, Norway, and Denmark work for private companies, own private property and real estate, and run and own their own businesses, like in the US.That's capitalism. I'm no sociologist but it has to be obvious that those nations are not socialist in the sense of the term NJ was using.

I never said he wasn't. Did you think I'd never heard of Norway, Sweden, or Denmark, nor knew anything about their politics and customs?Did it occur to you to try to figure out what I might have meant when I said there were no socialist countries? Or did you simply assume that I was such an idiot that I had never heard of any nation located outside the borders of the United States?

We covered this. They're not socialist. They're social democracies. Socialism refers to public ownership of the "means of production", and in those countries private citizens own means of production. That didn't seem to stop you from acting like I had never heard of Scandinavia. Did it occur to you, at any point, that I was saying that those Scandinavian nations aren't actually socialist, particularly in the way conservatives mean, and that maybe you might address that instead of naked, erroneous assertions that Sweden, Norway, and the rest are "socialist" according to Holmes' private dictionary?For God's sake. You really don't have any control over it, do you? You just can't help but act dishonestly. It's the relentless dishonesty, Holmes, just like it always is.

Your lack of honesty, as always. ??? I never said that you had.Are you really puzzled by what's going on, here? How can you be when I've explained it over and over and over again? But we did. Message 23, of mine. Relentlessly dishonest of you. Not a page later and you're already pretending like it didn't happen. But there are no socialist nations. There are some social democracies, they include those countries you mentioned.If words mean anything at all, Holmes, then we should use them according to their definitions. If those nations are "socialist", then the United States is socialist. I mean, we have public services here, do we not? We have public health care - for some individuals. Several such programs, in fact. We even have a program called Social Security that all Americans are entitled to payments from.Yet, the United States is not socialist. If the US is not then there's really no reason to call those other nations "socialist", either. But, it did make sense to you that I had never heard of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden? Except, as always, be relentlessly dishonest, disingenuous, and misrepresent the arguments of your opponents.Emotion doesn't have anything to do with it and I don't understand why you continue to characterize this as an "emotional" issue, or that I'm being "emotional." I literally don't understand what you're getting at with that.But, you're objectively dishonest in your posts. An increasing number of participants here are beginning to observe it - because you don't even try to excuse it. Nothing emotional about it - you've been shown to be dishonest in your posts. Where's the emotion? But I know that they are not, and I explained that they are not. You're simply objectively wrong, as I've shown (and as you've lied about.)Why would I be ignorant of conditions in Sweden, particularly, having spent 5 years at a predominantly-Swedish college? I've known a number of Swedes. I hope to visit that country some day. I'm obviously not an expert on conditions there but why would you assume I was completely ignorant?And if you didn't, why did you think that I hadn't considered Sweden, Norway, and Denmark when I said that there were no socialist nations? Why would you assume that I would be that stupid? But I've already said that. Why would you have assumed that I was making any other argument but that? And why are you now pretending like that hasn't been my argument all along - that "socialist" is not the accurate term to refer to nations like Sweden, Norway, and Denmark?Why did you assume, instead, that I simply hadn't ever heard of Sweden, Norway, or Denmark? Why the relentless dishonest and assumption of ignorance, Holmes?

You keep harping on this and I don't see the relevance. That some in those countries think those countries are socialist doesn't seem to matter any more than the fact that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk refer to our government as socialist. What I need is for you to be honest when you reply to me, instead of being disingenuous. It's really not a difficult concept. I can't understand why you continue to struggle with it.