You're viewing a single thread.
All the posers here thinking they are very smart, while never asking similar "stupid" questions about their own political ideologies.
In general, smart people ask stupid questions about everything.
As of this specific question, there are various possible answers:
-
Crowdfunding;
-
Custom fees as a source of income;
-
Close to taxes, but paying some fixed fee, like a membership fee.
Variants which are taxes, but relevant for the question in spirit:
-
Georgism;
-
Only one simple income tax, only one simple property tax, no other taxes;
-
Deciding every citizen's payment into budget on a popular vote every N years (may even make it not a sum, but a percentage of property or something), as the average of submitted numbers or something.
Not a sovcit, but they do have a point in saying "fuck you" to the authority.
Wait you're calling us stupid and you think the government can fund themselves through crowdfunding.
The government tells people they no longer have to pay taxes but they can if they want. That's your pitch is it?
I don't.
Why can't leftists argue without distorting their opponents' words?
Why can't leftists argue without distorting their opponents' words?
This is what's called a strawman fallacy kids
I know what my words mean, so arguing to me about that is ... (without insults) ... never right.
Honestly at this point you either seem like you're trolling or you're very passionate but haven't done your research beyond reading a few articles years ago without following up or verifying their sources.
Then when people point out the flaws you go into personal attack mode
but haven’t done your research beyond reading a few articles years ago without following up or verifying their sources.
Have you rehearsed this phrase before a mirror? I mean, where specifically in these insult exchanges was research required?
Also people don't reason with "ahahaha, this has been disproved many times, everybody knows this". Not all social changes since Lucian's time I like.
Then when people point out the flaws you go into personal attack mode
There's been one (1) person who came really pointing out something, which I gave answers for.
Okay
No one's distorting your words, that's literally what you said, you literally said the government could fund themselves through crowdfunding, it's right there, you said it.
How the hell would that work. People already dodge taxes that they have required to pay, I WAS if you're not required to pay taxes then they definitely won't do it at all.
I don't need to rearrange your words to make them sound stupid.
I said it can be one of the sources of income and it already is in the form of war bonds and donations.
How the hell would that work. People already dodge taxes that they have required to pay, I WAS if you’re not required to pay taxes then they definitely won’t do it at all.
Some dodge taxes, some donate. I've donated to some things. Many others did.
You need something, you want something done, you have a motivation.
It's a part of a list.
But how is any of that better than the current system of taxes which will ensure they get money?
It doesn't seem like relying on the good will of people could possibly work. And I don't see how the richer incentivized to pay literally anybody anything at all.
This all seems like the sort of thing a hippie comes out with, but they're allowed to come out with that kind of rubbish because their brains are permanently suzzled, so what's your excuse?
But how is any of that better than the current system of taxes which will ensure they get money?
Ideological problem, where you can't opt out.
It doesn’t seem like relying on the good will of people could possibly work. And I don’t see how the richer incentivized to pay literally anybody anything at all.
This has some similarities with wind as a source of renewable energy. It's one of the inputs, not all of the budget.
In this particular line of the list there's no incentive other than goodwill.
This all seems like the sort of thing a hippie comes out with, but they’re allowed to come out with that kind of rubbish because their brains are permanently suzzled, so what’s your excuse?
I don't need any excuse for thinking about possible solutions. I'd argue people with such reactions to those do.
And since you said "this all", other points are not reliant on goodwill. If by excuse you jokingly meant the reason we can't do with usual taxes - because of corruption in the wide sense. Unfair advantages gotten by some companies paying full taxes and other getting exemptions in various ways, bribe money finding more targets in a complex bendable system, imbalance of interests affecting lawmakers though the way the budget is comprised.
Not a sovcit, but they do have a point in saying "fuck you" to the authority.
No they don’t. Fighting “authority” for the sake of it stupid and meaningless because it’s so vague it’s dangerous. You fight the injustice or the lack of transparency, but what you prescribe as “authority” could be anything from schools that educate to laws that protect to support of groups you don’t belong to.
If you said “Authoritarianism”, you’d have a point.
No and I don't owe you anything
And we don't owe you respect
"We" is a symptom of some disorder? Or you think that numbers matter here?
Nope, they're right. You are not owed respect by anyone.
Answered elsewhere - I'm fine with that, and in your case I'd never want it.
That sounds a bit like his ancap attitude to collective services.
You are definitely displaying a number of disorders, that is for sure.
ASD and ADHD. 2 is a number.
But I'm grateful for them, as in this conversation they show me to be generally more adequate than your side.
Also forgot to say that I don't need your respect.
I would also add symptoms of ODD, HPD, and NPD
I don't think scolding morons is indicative of any of these
What if my neighborhood can't crowdfund enough money to keep a fire department in operation because we can't afford to?
Just let our houses burn down?
The fire department sends us a bill?
You buy insurance like many other people, most of which won't have a fire. You call them, they come.
From where? You didn’t fund enough to have a fire department. And since you’re so clever as to not pay for support services, wait to you see the cost of your exceptional insurance..
Folks, we either have a sovcit who discovered this group or an anarchist-type just stirring up shit.
Ah yes, insurance against fire. I can't see a problem ever happening there.
Wait, that's already a problem?
So if I get this right, your solution is to do something insurance companies aren't willing to do.
Should they be forced to?
No, it's not, the article is obviously not in ancap context, it's in USA, California, 2024 context.
Humanity is doomed.
What would make insuring such homes profitable in your world?
An irrelevant question after your argument has been shot down
You didn't shoot down my argument. You just said "nuh-uh."
Your argument is in the wrong context -> it's invalid -> shot down.
You're simply denying things you don't like and pretend to be winning something somewhere. Go away
You said insurance would cover firefighting.
I'm saying insurance can't afford to do that now.
Your response to that is "the ancap world isn't like the world now."
Yes, I know. So what's the difference?
A company may not be able to afford prolonging contracts without raising prices, but otherwise be able to fulfill this role.
Maybe people shouldn't settle in places too prone to fires.
Maybe there's some regulation involved in the first sentence which won't be in ancap.
Whatever. Ancap being worse than alternative in some criterion doesn't mean defeat of ancap, ancap being better in some other criterion doesn't mean victory of ancap.
Everyone this is sophism in action
I'm starting to think this person isn't just trolling...
Adding to the pile of stupid questions:
Why don't the insurance companies just offer it at a higher rate, until it's profitable for them?
If you exchange "buy insurance" for "pay taxes", you're awfully close to reality!
The difference is that you choose the insurance company.
Did you really choose which firestation was gonna send a truck?? That's the problem with using a "free market" argument for emergencies, yeah sure it's great to choose between different emergency providers when there's nothing happening.
But when a fire starts or you have a heart attack? The nearest Ambulance or Fire Truck that can get you is coming to get you, and you don't (and can't) have a choice in which Hospital they're gonna rush you to, or which fire station that truck came from, all that matters is that it came
Imagine being the first person to answer without insults or smug stupidity since I first commented under this post, and I wasn't insulting others then.
Did you really choose which firestation was gonna send a truck?? That’s the problem with using a “free market” argument for emergencies, yeah sure it’s great to choose between different emergency providers when there’s nothing happening.
Yes. You need to have at least twice as many firestations to have a choice, if you want to choose between fire services, though.
Or if we are talking only about choosing between insurance companies, then there's no problem, but with only one fire service and some imagined jungle capitalism you'll have a problem, because it'll be very expensive as a monopolist.
I don't see a problem with having twice as many firestations, as in two parallel services. They don't have only one landline at the firestation after all. They have HA in any mass service system.
This all is unimportant, though, since it ignores the fact that something like a state fire service, only one separate from police, military and others and with administration formed separately from them is still allowable for ancap. Where membership would be like citizenship in our world, and a member gets the service on usual conditions (but pays something like taxes), while a non-member will pay a lot that one time. It's similar to state healthcare being free for citizens, but not for foreign nationals in some countries.
Notice how it requires no coercion or monopoly, so perfectly acceptable for ancap.
But when a fire starts or you have a heart attack?
See my solution.
Yes. You need to have at least twice as many firestations to have a choice, if you want to choose between fire services, though.
You're gonna sit there on your phone trying to decide which fire service to use while your house is literally burning down?
What about people who rent? It's not their own private property, are they supposed to pay for the whole building being saved? Does it get put on the landlord? He never consented to having his building saved, his tenants just called the fire station when a fire started. Are the tenants supposed to contact their landlord first so that he can properly consent to having a fire station save his property?
I don't see a problem with having twice as many firestations, as in two parallel services. They don't have only one landline at the firestation after all. They have HA in any mass service system.
Well other than now having to pay for double the amount of infrastructure, you now also probably have people who own and profit off the stations, which introduces every normal market pressure, positive and corrupting.
Notice how it requires no coercion
"Pay our massive fee or your house burns down" certainly sounds coercive. You've also not established anything to guarantee that a fire station doesn't develop a monopoly.
See my solution.
If your solution to serious and urgent emergencies like "Oh my god, my house is on fire" or "Oh my god, I'm having a heart attack" is several paragraphs long, you've not actually developed a solution, just a hypothetical which shows painfully obviously why we stopped running society like this millenia ago.
You’re gonna sit there on your phone trying to decide which fire service to use while your house is literally burning down?
Why "trying to decide"? One may have some kind of subscription etc. Also finding one quickly, like with taxi and food delivery services, is a demand to be filled. Markets and such.
What about people who rent? It’s not their own private property, are they supposed to pay for the whole building being saved? Does it get put on the landlord? He never consented to having his building saved, his tenants just called the fire station when a fire started. Are the tenants supposed to contact their landlord first so that he can properly consent to having a fire station save his property?
It seems you haven't read the paragraph about separation.
Well other than now having to pay for double the amount of infrastructure, you now also probably have people who own and profit off the stations, which introduces every normal market pressure, positive and corrupting.
You'll pay less, that's for sure, ask anyone who've worked with state services and big organizations. At their job, I mean. I have.
“Pay our massive fee or your house burns down” certainly sounds coercive. You’ve also not established anything to guarantee that a fire station doesn’t develop a monopoly.
It seems you haven't read the paragraph about separation.
If your solution to serious and urgent emergencies like “Oh my god, my house is on fire” or “Oh my god, I’m having a heart attack” is several paragraphs long, you’ve not actually developed a solution, just a hypothetical which shows painfully obviously why we stopped running society like this millenia ago.
It seems you haven't read the paragraph about separation. Which is one (1) paragraph, not several. Also no, it doesn't show anything, because you haven't read it and can't make such claims.
The paragraph about separation:
This all is unimportant, though, since it ignores the fact that something like a state fire service, only one separate from police, military and others and with administration formed separately from them is still allowable for ancap. Where membership would be like citizenship in our world, and a member gets the service on usual conditions (but pays something like taxes), while a non-member will pay a lot that one time. It’s similar to state healthcare being free for citizens, but not for foreign nationals in some countries.
Now what I don't understand is why you all refuse to read before commenting.
Why "trying to decide"? One may have some kind of subscription etc. Also finding one quickly, like with taxi and food delivery services, is a demand to be filled. Markets and such.
So you want every person to have to pay for a fire subscription? And if they don't have one their house burns down or they get extorted?
You'll pay less, that's for sure, ask anyone who've worked with state services and big organizations. At their job, I mean. I have.
You certainly may have interacted with government during your career, but hearing this is all I needed to hear. There's nothing objectively different between Government and Private products, sure the private product may be cheaper sometimes, but there's also plenty of ways the private service could be more expensive, that's why every business, including the one I used to run, has conversations about cost vs. benefit of private vs. public for certain services.
It seems you haven't read the paragraph about separation. Which is one (1) paragraph, not several. Also no, it doesn't show anything, because you haven't read it and can't make such claims.
I have read it, I just didn't mention it because not only was it irrelevant, it was also wildly incorrect, government services can compete with eachother, and private companies can have a monopoly even without government intervention.
So you want every person to have to pay for a fire subscription? And if they don’t have one their house burns down or they get extorted?
That's what you have now, only it's provided by the state. Well, if you don't have one, you are either an illegal alien or have it free or prosecuted for not paying taxes.
There’s nothing objectively different between Government and Private products, sure the private product may be cheaper sometimes, but there’s also plenty of ways the private service could be more expensive, that’s why every business, including the one I used to run, has conversations about cost vs. benefit of private vs. public for certain services.
I agree, it's mostly about size and organization, not about ownership.
because not only was it irrelevant, it was also wildly incorrect, government services can compete with eachother, and private companies can have a monopoly even without government intervention.
Well, I'm looking at it and I see it as relevant. Yes, they can, but it's not necessary for them to be part of the same structure. Yes, they can, but they may be organizations like Mozilla with the supposed goal of delivering the service, not profit. So just like with state services, but separated where no monolithic organization is really required. Also I haven't said what you are arguing with, so it can't be wildly incorrect if I haven't said it, obviously.
Hell yeah baby privatise the military😎💵💵 /s
Wrong post. All things mentioned are about one centralized state.
The reason for them instead of usual taxes is to make it harder to embezzle taxes and reduce motivation to corrupt the state apparatus. You've heard that before, it was the usual republican shit.
they do have a point in saying “fuck you” to the authority.
The don't say "fuck you" though - they say "gotcha!". The way I understand it, the Sovereign Citizens Movement is a cargo cult. They hear about all the billionaires who barely pay taxes thanks to clever accounting and all the criminals who escape punishment on technicalities, and figure that "if the law can be manipulated - why can't we manipulate it?"
Do they "have a point"? Maybe, in the same way alchemy had a point that lead and gold are made of the same fundamental matter and therefore one can be converted to the other. In the same way humoralist medicine had a point that the human body has various substances that must be balanced to maintain health. They've all had a point in that they've managed to glimpse at the nature of the problem - and they all fail by grossly underestimating the actual complexity of the model and the amount of effort, resources and expertise required to achieve their goals.
I wouldn't be surprised if an expert legal team could achieve some of the things SovCits are trying to achieve. But that would require lots of hard work from them, and SovCits have managed to convince themselves that all it takes is a few magic phrases. I leave it to anthropologists to figure out how they came to think they could so easily figure out what these magic phrases are.
The way I understand it, the Sovereign Citizens Movement is a cargo cult. They hear about all the billionaires who barely pay taxes thanks to clever accounting and all the criminals who escape punishment on technicalities, and figure that “if the law can be manipulated - why can’t we manipulate it?”
Ah, there is that, yes. There are people who believe that law is some magic where they can prove anything if they know it well enough and know some secrets.
It's not a bad belief, frankly. They want to prove something they consider right, so they believe the law would be on their side if they worked hard enough. Just naive, but not worth ridicule.
In the sense that its connection to justice is not 1-to-1 they are right, but there are no secrets that bend it, just raw real power which a sovereign citizen doesn't possess.
I wouldn’t be surprised if an expert legal team could achieve some of the things SovCits are trying to achieve. But that would require lots of hard work from them, and SovCits have managed to convince themselves that all it takes is a few magic phrases. I leave it to anthropologists to figure out how they came to think they could so easily figure out what these magic phrases are.
Oh, you already said that.
I don't know what you mean by "figure out" (as in what else there is to figure out), but this is indeed a common enough plot point in fairy tales.
I was talking about the emotional part where right and common sense matter more than the law. The law is supported by force, so it's morally acceptable to use force to protect right and common sense against it. Oh, well, speaking of USA, that's in their Constitution anyway, and what's more important, those founding fathers they like to mention have many times said that this is a natural principle and the Constitution doesn't create or support it, just mentions it.
-
Crowdfunding;
-
Custom fees as a source of income;
-
Close to taxes, but paying some fixed fee, like a membership fee.
these are just taxation with extra steps
Sovcits believe most of the laws are corrupted or something like this, so these things are better as they are simpler and can even be put into constitutional law or something.
I've never met one, we have "citizens of USSR" where I live.
-
- Crowdfunding;
Sounds like someone has never gone on a charity drive and hasn't experienced how limited one could get funding from it.
One line in a list
You’re definitely misunderstanding this post. Yeah, there’s value in bucking authority. But you’re also just describing taxes. It sounds like you’ve read up on the modern form of libertarianism. Which is another crock.
The problem isn’t that they’re questioning authority. Generally most people (especially on lemmy) are down with that. We’re talking about the leaps of illogic that sovcits rest their entire belief system on. This post is to highlight the absurd hypocrisy in what they preach. Not to call their disobedience of authority foolish, but their methods and entirely unfounded beliefs.
You mean that they are imagining a phantom republic so resilient that they can live by its "true" laws while most people violate them day and night, and that these "true" laws make functioning of said republic impossible?
Many people believe in rule of law, yet revolutions and forceful changes are a necessity, states recognize facts made against existing law all the time, every state and system in existence has been erected by illegal violence, and with all that many say that another revolution (in hypothetical scenario, not right now) would somehow be less legal than existing systems. There's a clear contradiction here, the only answer to which is usually that the current situation is in common interest and you can't do that, because "fuck around and find out".
There are such contradictions in free speech, of which everyone here certainly knows - one can use free speech to kill free speech. There are such contradictions in property rights, as everyone ridiculing ancaps certainly knows. There are such contradictions in personal freedom. There was another example but I think I'm writing too much. Got this habit while learning English at school.
But you’re also just describing taxes. It sounds like you’ve read up on the modern form of libertarianism. Which is another crock.
I've read up on many forms of it. Yes, I'm literally listing ways to make taxes acceptable for a libertarian.
TL;DR: Nobody employs pure ideology. If sovcits were to make their own state, they'd have taxes with the reasoning that these are necessary in practice. Same as NEP in Soviet Russia.
How very libertarian of you. Who’s going to make me pay those “not tax” taxes? Your private military? Well, my private military is bigger so I say NO to your desire for my money.
This post is not about libertarianism, idiot. Bunch of lefties overloaded me with their bullshit yesterday and now the slow ones come to have a shot, thinking those of yesterday didn't buttfuck themselves publicly with triumphant look.
In general when you are doing such things like they did instead of normal discussion, you are robbing yourself of an ability to make a case for your wrong opinion.
-
