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The World Health Organization calls for decriminalization of most drugs

Serious question tcjmd - have you ever read the Federalist Papers? It's pretty much the entire debate on the purpose and role of the federal government as the founding fathers saw it, laid out in detailed arguments.

They are tremendously interesting reads even now.
 
Specifically - about taxation ... Federalist #12 (The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue) isn't particularly long, but it speaks very directly to that issue.

A nation cannot long exist without revenues. Destitute of this essential support, it must resign its independence, and sink into the degraded condition of a province. This is an extremity to which no government will of choice accede. Revenue, therefore, must be had at all events.

...

As the necessities of the State, nevertheless, must be satisfied in some mode or other, the defect of other resources must throw the principal weight of public burdens on the possessors of land. And as, on the other hand, the wants of the government can never obtain an adequate supply, unless all the sources of revenue are open to its demands, the finances of the community, under such embarrassments, cannot be put into a situation consistent with its respectability or its security.
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Let's just say Alexander Hamilton probably didn't agree with you. And by "probably" I mean "ABSOLUTELY IN NO WAY".
 
Federalist 12 has a lot of nuance - Hamilton is arguing that commercial and consumption taxes on a federal level are necessary because state by state import/export taxes will be easily avoided and the states won't be able to raise enough revenue (basically, tax dodging will be too easy) and that means the revenue burden will fall on landowners nearly exclusively in the form of property taxes.

What he does confirm there, and Madison backs up in a few other places, is the absolute essential role of reliable revenue streams for the government through various and wide forms of taxation - designed to spread the tax base and keep the government functional. Without this, there would be no government is the basic assumption both Madison and Hamilton start from.
 
Or here, in Federalist #30:

The conclusion is, that there must be interwoven, in the frame of the government, a general power of taxation, in one shape or another.

Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic; as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions. A complete power, therefore, to procure a regular and adequate supply of it, as far as the resources of the community will permit, may be regarded as an indispensable ingredient in every constitution
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I don't have anything to add but I was watching TV last night and it was depicting antebellum life in the American south and it hit me, "Man... I can't believe that slavery was actually a thing."
 
damn. i started reading this thinking it would be about the op. NOPE.
 
vadimivich said:
Serious question tcjmd - have you ever read the Federalist Papers? It's pretty much the entire debate on the purpose and role of the federal government as the founding fathers saw it, laid out in detailed arguments.

They are tremendously interesting reads even now.
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The Federalist Papers are great and all, but they shouldn't be conflated with the whole of the Founding Fathers' intentions. They were written, after all, to convince the other half. It's not like they all got together and wrote them as a consensus statement.
 
DeacinBama said:
The Federalist Papers are great and all, but they shouldn't be conflated with the whole of the Founding Fathers' intentions. They were written, after all, to convince the other half. It's not like they all got together and wrote them as a consensus statement.
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um, sort of but not really
 
ImTheCaptain said:
um, sort of but not really
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Perhaps I'm being cavalier with the word 'half', but they were written to promote ratification of the Constitution, which faced serious opposition. So you're going to have to spell what you mean out for me.
 
DeacinBama said:
Perhaps I'm being cavalier with the word 'half', but they were written to promote ratification of the Constitution, which faced serious opposition. So you're going to have to spell what you mean out for me.
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According to Wikipedia, they were definitely the thoughts of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay; and they were used as debater's handbooks to supply the arguments that ultimately carried the day for ratification in NY and VA. They were not used in ratification debates in several other states, where ratification occurred before they were written. I think it is fair to say they were very important expressions of common sentiments among many of the Founders, and certainly have been relied upon in the interpretation of the Constitution for 200 years. It is also fair to say that holding forth on the Constitution without some basic knowledge of the Federalist Papers is a dodgy proposition.
 
I'm sorry, but I don't see how any of that is at odds with what I said. The mere fact that they were used in a debate furthers my point that they represent one side of the argument. Was their argument persuasive? Yes. Are they extremely important? Absolutely. Should they be used as handbook into the thoughts of "the Founders" as a whole? No. The Founders weren't monolithic, so it's an incomplete thought to ascribe The Federalist Papers to them collectively, as was implied in the post I quoted. That was my only point.
 
Bama, another thing is to think the "Founders" would think the same today as they did in the 1770s and 1780s is kind of ridiculous. These were people who were changing the world. To postulate that they would think the same as they did then today is not that logical.

Uber-conservative also deny that Jefferson, Madison. Adams, Monroe, et al, were the most progressive political thinkers for their century. To put forth that they would be conservative today defies their history.
 
Do these libertarian purists think we would be one of the world's economic superpowers without an income tax.

And our federal taxes are insanely low right now. My Effective tax rate last year was 17% based on an income level that makes me conclude that you have to be making a damn boatload of money to even be coming close to 35%.
 
Yes you do. The effective tax rate for the top one percent is something like 29.4 so you have to be making an incredible amount of money to have a rate of 35%
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
Yes you do. The effective tax rate for the top one percent is something like 29.4 so you have to be making an incredible amount of money to have a rate of 35%
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Actually no. The more you make the less likely you are to pay 35%. The only people paying that are high income renters with no kids and few deductions - in other words, almost nobody.
 
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