A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives ...by Michael Moore

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Instead of creating loopholes using arguments regarding what things a person might need, we simply don't tax up to an amount where it is reasonable to assume all needs are taken care of. At that point, close loopholes as there is no need for them.

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Just to belabor a point, such a thing can also be done in a progressive tax scheme. To modify your example, one can just as well have a progressive tax law that states that no one who makes less than 24k owes any taxes at all.This is what a progressive tax structure would look like:A. If you make 24k or less, you owe nothing.B. If you make 50k or less you owe
(income - 24k) x 0.2C. If you make 100k or less you owe what you calculated in B plus
(income - 50k) x 0.1D. If you make 250k or less then you owe what you calculated in C plus
(income - 100k) x 0.1E. If you make more more than 250k you owe what you calculated in D plus
(income - 250k) x 0.1So, a slight complication over the flat tax, but by making the second ceiling (in B) high enough, for the majority of tax payers it would be just like the flat tax anyway. People making more would, presumably, either have the skills to do the calculations or would know someone who could do them.The loop holes, complications, and deductions are not inherent to a progressive tax structure. I still maintain that even if a flat tax were adopted, the special interests (and the tax payers themselves who would be eligible for the deductions) would just put them back into the tax code, making the flat tax just as complicated as the current system is now.This what I actually experience when I do my own taxes. Right now, the basic federal structure is progressive (at least it is before taking into account deductions and such), yet, because I claim no deductions (beyond the personal exemption that would also be a part of the flat tax structure) I fill out the EZ form, and it takes me a total of 5 to 10 minutes to do it.In fact, it takes me longer to fill out the state tax forms, even though the state tax is essentially a flat tax, because I have to look at all the lines on the form for special sources of income and possible exemptions to make sure none of them apply to me.Edited by Chiroptera, : To make the sample tax instructions a bit more pedantically correct.Edited by Chiroptera, : "I know what I am talking about" sounds a bit too confrontational.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

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Physical punishment is a valid way to teach discipline,

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So, if you and I were sitting in a bar, and every time you didn't approve of something I said, you slapped me across the face, do you think the police officers and judge would accept your explanation that you were simply using a valid way to teach me dicipline?If it's not OK for you to do it to me, why is it OK for you to do it to a child?Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

You are playing a game of pure emotional appeal. You are not a child and I don't know you and there is no relationship between us such that I should slap you. Indeed you have placed the object of slapping as some arbitrary "I don't approve" and a loaded "slap you across the face".The FACT is that people can be in relationships where they have power over others and that includes the ability to instill discipline in those others, including via physical punishment, and yes, even adults. For example boot camps or intense voluntary training of some kind. This also includes wholly involuntary places like prison.But in this case we are talking about a parent raising a child. Parents gets to do many things that I cannot do to you in a bar. I cannot drag you to church. I cannot drag you to school. I cannot stop you from having a beer. I cannot make you sit and listen to a lecture. I cannot make you finish all the peas on your plate. etcWe let parents do this because it is thought that they will help their child through guidance. It will lead to something better. Whether anything does or not is totally an experiment that each parent may try or not on a case by case basis.While certainly parents can end up beating children senselessly and harmfully, it is false to claim that physical punishment invariably is that and has never resulted in people who have grown up to be just fine. Conversely, people who have never had a parent lay a hand on them have been emotionally/psychologically tortured.When they train horses, do they use completely nonphysical means to instill discipline? Do physical means destroy the horse? If not, why would it be worse/incompatible for human animals?Edited by holmes, : physical

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

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While certainly parents can end up beating children senselessly and harmfully, it is false to claim that physical punishment invariably is that and has never resulted in people who have grown up to be just fine.

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Can you show where I claimed that, or are you simply going to do what you usually do an argue against what you wished I had claimed instead of what I actually said?At any rate, your claim has several holes.First of all, you don't know if the person might have been an even better adjusted, more remarkable person had they not been physically punished.Second, the person might have grown up to be "just fine" in spite of rather than because of the physical punishment they received at the hands of their parents.

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Conversely, people who have never had a parent lay a hand on them have been emotionally/psychologically tortured.

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That's both true, and irrelevant to the subject of physical punishment.Just to reiterate, the question I asked truthlover was;Why do you need to hit children?So far, nobody has answered that question.

Yes, I'm aware of that. And I'm not really against that either. Allowing for livable wage before taxation is more the important idea.However, I guess I am not seeing a huge advantage to progressive tax schemes either. Once an adequate floor is found, I don't see a problem with an even tax on all profits. If that is something that can bring people to the table to create a realistic "floor" on taxes, all the better. No don't go being a realist! heheheh... You are probably right, but I'd love to bask in the glow of less complicated structures while they might last. I have been unable to fill out an EZ for years. This has nothing to do with me wanting to take deductions. It takes more than that time for me and it is a maze.My guess is most people honestly arguing for a flat tax are in the same situations, mainly operating a business, and see no reason for all of this. Your point that the same complexity can get placed on a flat tax scheme is a valid point. But I think it is the illusion of universal simplicity (simplify one thing you can simplify it all) which may explain that gut reaction by those for flat taxes.

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I didn't say you argued that. That is what would be required to argue against the use of physical punishment within the setting I outlined: parents having rights to do things for the benefit of the child, despite it being something the child might not like.Instead of playing this tired line from now on why don't you just ask for clarification. Yes, we are not clairvoyants. What is your point? We don't know if they would have been better, and we don't know if they would have been worse for having done X.It is arbitrary and convenient to throw this against physical punishment than anything else. The only important point is that people agreed upon as fine have emerged from such methods. Again the exact same thing can be said of anything. Why is this being held against physical punishment except for that you don't like it personally? Why do you need to emotionally manipulate them? Why do you need to send them to school when that upsets them? etcYour question is both loaded and arbitrary.And you have dodged the point I made about horse training. Do they use physical punishment in training horses? If so does it make them lesser? Are they getting trained "in spite" of the physical punishment? If it is adequate for disciplining animals, why would it not be for human animals?Let me end by pointing something out. I am not arguing that you should be for phys punishment, or that you are wrong for not wanting to do so. I am arguing that critiquing other discipline strategies in such a black/white method, especially demanding necessity is errant.

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

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Why do you need to emotionally manipulate them?

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I never said that anyone needs to emotionally manipulate children.

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Why do you need to send them to school when that upsets them? etc

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Oh yes, hitting children is eactly on the same level as sending them to school when they would rather not go. [/eyeroll]And parents don't actually HAVE to send them to school. They could homeschool them.

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Your question is both loaded and arbitrary.

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No it isn't.I asked that question as an honest question. I have asked that question to many people who advocate using physical pain on children and I have yet to get an answer that doesn't boil down to, "It's easier".

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And you have dodged the point I made about horse training.

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LOL I wasn't "dodging", it's just irrelevant, since horses are not humans, but if you insist...

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Do they use physical punishment in training horses?

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Many people do, but the trainers who know what they are doing do not.

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If so does it make them lesser?

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Yes.

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Are they getting trained "in spite" of the physical punishment?

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No, they are getting trained, just not trained very well. They won't be as willing to try hard for the trainer and will be less affectionate and far less trusting and happy about their job. You can use a stick, so to speak, but it will only get you so far with a 1,200 lb animal.It is usually the less experienced and less skilled, impatient macho-type trainers who have to resort to pain and fear of more pain to get obedience. But like I said, there is a price to pay for going down that road.

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If it is adequate for disciplining animals, why would it not be for human animals?

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It's interesting that you would bring this up.Do you know anything about wild equine herd/social interactions? Horses are very physically expressive with each other and there is a lot of touching and communication between them all the time. There are disagreements and power struggles but if they are given adequate range rarely do the conflicts actually result in any sort of serious physical altercation. The only time this really happens is when individuals are being challeneged by another for dominance, and that mostly happens with the stallions. The mares have a pecking order too, but again, most of this is maintained by (often subtle) threat and posturing rather than by actual physical pain.The best horse trainers learn to understand this language of horses and will use it (and have always used it) to calm and gain the trust of a horse and to become "alpha" so the use of physical punishment is not needed. All that "horse whisperer" hype from a few years ago seemed like magic to laypeople but was nothing new to me.

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Let me end by pointing something out. I am not arguing that you should be for phys punishment, or that you are wrong for not wanting to do so. I am arguing that critiquing other discipline strategies in such a black/white method, especially demanding necessity is errant.

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But I'm not.If someone who advocates such a method can provide a reasonable explanation for why a parent who is larger and more powerful than a child, who has learned to regulate their emotions and impulses better than a child, and is more educated, experienced, resourceful, and wise than a child, needs to use physical pain (and the resulting fear and humiliation) to teach the child, I am willing to consider it. Edited by schrafinator, : fixed punctuationEdited by schrafinator, : spelling

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"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."- Richard Feynman"Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends! Well I say there are some things we don't want to know! Important things!"
- Ned Flanders

Well I never said anyone needs to hit a kid. So I guess we're even. I'm sorry, I'm not sure what "level" you are talking about. I don't remember discussing "levels". Being upset is being upset. Parents may expose a child to something that they do not like. It is upsetting either physically or emotionally.Homeschooling would be just the same. What if a kid really does not want to study? Yet you make them (somehow), it can be quite upsetting. I can imagine a situation where that might be more upsetting for a child than the threat of a hard swat on the ass if they drink out of the liquor cabinet, backed up with a swat if they do it. You sure make debate easy. Yes it is. Guess we're done here. I stated in my first post which addressed horses that the commonality was that we were both animals. Training methods for one should be relatively relatable between them.Your answer to this question is not sufficient. All I see are assertions on your part. You say that they can be trained but not well. They don't respond as well apparently. Are you suggesting that one cannot find a trainer with a winning horse and maintains that some form of physical discipline can be necessary on given occassions?And I have to question your claim as your own avatar shows your horse outfitted with bit and reins, and you are holding a crop. Now I can assume for sake of argument that you never use that crop, but my guess is you are going to tug on those reins. That would NOT be physical punishment to guide the horse?As it is horses generally must be broken into accepting a rider. Again I can assume for sake of argument that there are some passive methods to gain trust, but the existence of a rider itself is a physical force against the will of the horse. Driving it on through a race generally requires and is physical punishment.It must suffer on the physical level, in order for it to achieve what it is YOU want it to do. Now you are discussing rarity of its usage. Just because a person says it can be useful does not mean that the usage might not be rare. You claim that they respond to threat, but how do they recognize a threat without first understanding what that threat is about?Generally physical punishment is used in exactly that same social way. A threat is made. If a child does something anyway, the threat is carried out. If the child was not aware what the threat meant, it does in the future and responds to the threat.Unless horses are geniuses, my guess is they have experienced something to let them know what they want to avoid.By the way, you might want to explain how horses are bred, and indeed how they breed without people around. Is that not with some amount of physical punishment involved? And if the horse for whatever reason is bucking and threatening and will simply not respond to polite requests? What happens then? I'm not sure who advocated it, but let's say they did.Children are not destroyed by pain. Much of their early life is learning from many bumps and bruises to avoid things. Pain really works to get one to avoid something. Seems to me that is reasonably one of the reasons it exists. Avoidance of pain, and association of pain, to learn a rule of behavior.Parents are not superhuman. As smart or educated or controlled as they may be, there can be no reasonable expectation that they have all the answers to how to control a child in every specific eventuality. The child may confront a parent with a situation calling for some immediate response to set a border (where talking would take way too much time), or a naked contest of wills where they test to see what happens if they go ahead and defy the parent anyway. Indeed there is no reason to assume a child will not decide to inflict physical pain on others (including the parent) to advance their will.Sometimes a swat is less subtle and more understandable as a border. I would advocate trying to reason first, when that is applicable, but who is to say that is always possible?Let me move on to address the parent who always uses force. While I do not necessarily agree with that I cannot necessarily find an issue with taking the "easy" way out. As long as it isn't excessive, that is only used in a consistent and understandable pattern as well as not to the extent of real physical damage... what is wrong with that for them? If they were raised that way and are doing fine and feel it is workable, why not?AbE: Oh yeah I forgot your loaded "fear and humiliation" line. Why is it fear of anything other than crossing that line, like with the horses? And what form of coercion where their will is undercut does not involve humiliation? I'm not sure where physical prodding will cause more humiliation than an emotional/psychological coercion.Edited by holmes, : abe

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holmes
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I guess you'd have to define 'hitting' in this instance. If you mean slapping them in the face, that's unacceptable. If you mean giving them a swat on their upper thigh or buttocks, that's well within reason.

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Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but robust, vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot fully understand what He's doing, but you know that you know Him." -Oswald Chambers

Well, it will alway be true that people who tastes run to fantasy will never be satisfied. In the case of the economy, too bad. A successful plan was being followed, and now it's gone.It mattered to me how successful the Clinton economic policies were, so I appreciate this opportunity to mention them again for those who didn't know (my post 88). Thanks.

Congratulations, I've always believed this was possible, too, if the parents are creative and patient enough. My personal opinion is that they must also be careful enough to ensure that their house is child proofed and that they are very careful that their toddlers have no opportunity to run into the street (leashed or something), because I've never seen a non-spanker have sufficient voice control of their toddlers to ensure their safety unrestrained. But who knows, maybe that's possible, too. I've never seen anyone who could do it. Maybe you don't. The alternative might be mandatory, long-term parent-training. There are people who can train dogs and horses, too, without ever hitting them, but they all have extensive training and they offer ongoing training and supervision to the average person who wants to repeat their results.That all said, your questions have absolutely nothing to do with my original post, which said that those who wish to make even one spanking into child abuse are almost exclusively liberal, and thus Michael Moore's promise that liberals are going to allow freedom of religion to parents is ludicrous. Remember, it is the Bible that says that he who spares the rod hates his child. You may disagree with that, but that is not the issue of this thread. The issue of this thread is Michael Moore's promises. I suggested most are simply not true, unless he makes them personal and not a promise from liberals.I don't know of any conservative groups, by the way, that want to make avoiding spanking children into child abuse, despite the fact that it is not rare that it endangers the life of small children.

Holmes,Let me say first that I agree with your post 113 in its points. I'm not meaning to interrupt your discussion with Schraf, nor disagree with you. But since this is Coffee House... We have a couple horse trainers in our village that have trained through Pat Perelli's methods. While one just told me last week that there are times you have to hit the horse to maintain authority, the whole goal of the "Natural Horsemanship" method is create a partnership that allows you to ride the horse without it being "physical force against the will of the horse." The idea is to get the horse to cooperate agreeably with the idea of a rider on its back.It's a pretty impressive system, and I've been amazed at what it's been able to achieve.Again, I don't mean to take anything away from your post, as I found all its points valid, but since this is Coffee House, I wanted to throw in a chatty comment about a horse training method I'm extremely impressed with.

Ok, great. I have to admit, I assumed you weren't willing to consider it. My last post to you was meant partly not to lose the point of my post on Michael Moore's promises, but I'll discuss using pain in training of children if you want.Whether you consider the world to be made by God or by the forces of nature, it seems undeniable to me that all animals are "created" to learn by pain. In fact, it seems to me that the whole reason you have the ability to feel pain is to know what you need to do. If you sprain your ankle, it swells and hurts, thus instructing you to rest it and limit its mobility. It's built right into your body.Except for those very few perfect people are around (I don't believe that nobody's perfect, but I'm not for sure), most of us have had behaviors that were "bad" that we didn't stop until we got caught, whether as children or as adults. For example, I have a friend who quit speeding home from work after he got two tickets in a month.What stopped him? Morality? No, the pain of paying the ticket. Now, admittedly this was emotional pain, but as we grow up emotional pain tends to work better and better on us. Less physical pain is needed to train an adult, because we learned from physical pain as children.For example, what will definitely stop a child from touching a wood-burning stove (still in use in some Tennessee homes) or a hot oven? Some children, having learned to obey mommy already, will not do it because mommy said so. However, most parents will need to keep their 2-year-old out of the kitchen if the stove is real hot, because no matter how much you tell the child not to touch the stove, there is a danger he/she will get too close and accidentally touch it or simply disobey and touch it.Let the child touch it once, however, and the whole scenario changes. That two-year-old won't go near the stove. You won't need to tell him/her not to touch it ever again. Pain effectively teaches two-year-olds.When my second-oldest son was 9-months-old, I put him on the floor with a glass of ice water in front of him. When he reached for it, I stopped his hand and told him no. I did this several times. After several times of stopping his hand, I whacked the back of his hand with a pencil just hard enough to hurt. I had to do this twice before he didn't reach for it anymore.I did the training again the next day, and I had a child that knew the meaning of no. It was a wonderful thing to watch him a few months later reaching for the TV knobs. I told him no, and he got back on the rug. Then he stood back up and reached again. I told him no, and he sat back down. Then he stood and put his hand on the TV cabinet. I said nothing, so he reached for the knobs again and got another no. Over the next couple minutes he put his hand all over the cabinet, determining what was allowed and not allowed.The result. When he was two, we went to a flea market. We played up the trip to him and his older brother, so they were very excited to be going out. As we walked across the parking lot, he got so excited he took off running towards the flea market and was running between two parked cars just as another car drove past them. I shouted no, and he stopped on the spot, sending rocks flying in the gravel he stopped so hard. Had I not have voice control of my two-year-old, he would have been dead or seriously injured.It seemed well worth three episodes of very tiny pain that trained him to respond to no. My friends didn't need to childproof their houses. I didn't go through the terrible two's with him, and today he's a responsible, hard-working teenager who loves me very much and enjoys the respect he gets from everyone around him.Is it possible that a parent could find an alternative to that little training session I did with my son? I think so. I listened to a guy on the radio once talk about all the creative ways he had used to change the behavior of his then 12-year-old son. I was impressed. I also realized that I'm not as creative as that man and most people aren't either. They'd have never come up with those clever training methods, and the fact is, a simple swat on the butt would have accomplished the same thing.Where children really suffer from parents is rage and lack of attention and time. That happens with both spanking and non-spanking parents. That is what needs to change, not some minor pain that is one of the main ways our brain is made to learn, anyway.

So you're either saying we don't have a responsibility to pay back the national debt or that Clinton was specifically under no burden to do so. Who's living in a fantasy world?By the way...the ad-homs just make you your argument look weaker than it actually is.

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When science and the Bible differ, science has obviously misinterpreted its data.
- Henry Morris, Head of Institute for Creation Research

That wasn't an ad hom. The Clinton budget went from a 200 billion deficit when he took office to a 200 billion surplus when he left, and that didn't satisfy you. You said you were disappointed because you wanted something more than that.I think that what you wanted was impossible, a fantasy. I was simply saying that your disappointment doesn't mean much to those of us who want a solution. Clinton's economic policies were clearly solving the problem. Another 4 years of continuing the policy and the national debt would have stopped increasing.I think if the American public knew the incredible progress that Clinton made on putting a stop to the increase in the national debt, they may still have ousted Clinton for his morals, but they would have demanded a continuation of his successful economic policies.You're asking for too much. I apologize for the offensive wording in saying that, but my statement was not ad hominem. I was saying that a policy that turned our budget around and began decreasing the debt over a 12-year period, then continued to do so, is an acceptable answer to the problem. I'm also saying that a demand to turn it around faster doesn't appear reasonable.