We always knew their candidate was Weekend at Bernie’s, but one has to admire the persistence with which they carried that husk of a human being over the finish line. One question that wasn’t quite answered was whether those who dragged him forward are delusional or liars about their candidate, their president. But there is just no more denying it any longer. The party of democracy and their press apparatchiks are having open discussions about subverting the will of their primary voters, as they are wont to do. It appears they give up precisely when they can no longer maintain the lie.

Who is the real president? Obama? Jill? This is a dangerous moment for the country. There is no one leading it, and now even the true believers have given up denying it. If there was ever to be an attack on the most powerful country on Earth or her allies, now is the time.

Recall the last time the Trump and Biden debated.

By that time Hunter Biden, the Biden crime family bagman, had stupidly left his laptop in a repair shop, and the contents found its way into the pages of the New York Post. The reporting displayed his numerous crimes for the world to see.

But the propaganda wing of the Biden campaign brewed up some misinformation in order to fool their base and any undecided voters. The Big Lie they conjured was that the laptop was Russian disinfo. They called in some favors from former deep state apparatchiks to help sell the lie to the gullible, and it worked. The information was censored and discredited in public discourse. And when Trump brought up laptop in the debate, Biden reiterated the lie.

This was one of the largest disinfo campaigns in recent memory and it defrauded the country, and exists as an exemplar of election interference. To this day no one has been held accountable.

I’m excited to see what Biden comes up with next.

That’s a lie. I’ve already established a reciprocal transaction is a moral basis for a claim to pretax income. But you haven’t responded to my arguments numerous times now.

For one, I do not believe there are such things as “moral outcomes”, for the reasons I’ve already stated. I believe in moral behavior. Morality concerns behavior and conduct, not “outcomes”.

The two parties have a moral claim because the exchange concerns their property, and they acted morally towards each other by voluntarily agreeing to the exchange. The tax collector has no moral basis because he is acting immorally towards the other parties by intruding into their exchange and stealing their property. The theft of property is both immoral behavior and an immoral outcome: both parties had their property stolen from them.

You have not proven the tax collector has any legitimate claim to anyone’s income. Even where the tax man claims he desires a “moral outcome”, you could not prove that there is one.

you don't have morality only a procedure.

That you are the beneficiary of a transaction doesn't mean you should be.

That is true. That one is the beneficiary of a transaction doesn't mean he should be. At some point one must prove he is entitled to the benefits. As an uninvited third party, the tax collector cannot provide that proof, therefor he should not be the beneficiary of the transaction.

It is morality wherever conduct between two or more people is concerned. In matters of trade, morality requires that people act morally and not immorally, just as in any other interaction. Fair dealing in such matters is moral. Stealing from others or extorting them is immoral.

I’m not talking about moral outcomes. I’m talking about moral behavior. And intervening in another’s transactions and taking their property is immoral.

That income is theirs because that is the terms they agreed to with their employer.

Wrong

I suggest there is moral and immoral behavior. You suggest there needs to be moral outcomes. This seems to be the principle upon which we differ, leading us to wildly different conclusions.

Given your advocacy for and defense of taxation, steeped as it is in statism, I fear you are willing to treat people as a means in order to achieve your desired end, namely, “moral outcomes”. As with all utilitarian thinking, you assume you know what regulations and prohibitions are required to reach a “moral outcome”, and that you’ll know you’ve reached one when it occurs—two impossible calculations. Worse, your quest for a moral outcome justifies you treating people unfairly, unjustly, and as a mere means for what is plainly some desire of your own rather than any discernible moral result. You’re willing to break a few eggs because you want to make an omelette.

You know better how one ought to live better then the Bangladeshi does, so you regulate everyone’s lives until you see the Bangladeshi living how he ought to. All of what you write indicates, to me, immoral behavior. After all, morality is has to do with conduct, not about the promise of some future state of affairs. And from what I’m reading this conduct is tyrannical. The desire to regiment people’s lives, to take from the fruits of their labor, all to satisfy some bureaucrat’s wishes, seems to me horrible, and I will oppose it tooth and nail.

It is relevant because Trump is proposing to eliminate income tax.

So what did the US do before the 16th amendment? What does Monaco or UAE or Bahamas do without income tax, for example?

There are two means by which a state can generate wealth: by exploiting the labor of others, like a criminal, or through production, like everyone else. So why not quit exploiting people and start producing? Why not charge people for these so-called services?

There were and are plenty terrible, immoral, and dubious legal concepts. Slave codes, for example. When morality and law contradict one has to lose either his moral sense or his respect for the law. I’ve chosen to retain my moral sense, and gave up quite easily my respect for the law or anyone who practices it. Any appeal to law is just a routine fallacy, anyway, so I’ll just disregard them.

But economic transactions concern morality wherever they involve human interaction. Theft, robbery, extortion, plunder, exploitation etc. are both economic and immoral transactions because the exchange involves the treatment of others. Sharing, charity, or any fair dealing are both economic and moral transactions, and for the same reasons. When you offer me something in return for my labor, and we both agree, and the transaction is satisfied, that’s a moral transaction. The inclusion of laws and contracts, as far as economic interactions go, is immoral because it is to involve a third-party and its coercive powers in the transaction.

Who pays for foreign wars? You benefit from cruise missiles dropped on wedding parties. You’re just getting together with your sensible community to build military bases on someone else’s land.

Go freely give them your money, Tim, instead of pretending that you do.

That's called being a citizen. The same way children are children and not slaves, even when they are "slaves to the whims" of their parents. Especially the first few years. It's really quite pathetic you're equivocating paying taxes to being a slave when we all know what a slave really looks like. You aren't it. You're just a pathetic selfish whiner.

The power parents have over their children is legitimate; the power the government has of the people isn’t. One can be justified, the other cannot. You’re probably employed by the government, living off another’s wealth, so I’m not surprised.

A slave is a person who is forced to work for and obey another.

People do not freely pay it because it is a crime if they don’t. It is garnished from their wages or taken at the point of sale, and without their permission. So this nonsense about paying it freely for the good of all, as if people are getting together with their neighborhood to throw money in a pot for a community garden, is fiction.

Go freely give your money to the government,Tim. That’s the only way you can escape the canard you’ve built for yourself. You believe the lie, you spread the lie, so why not be it?

What’s your counter argument, Tim? Maybe you pay taxes voluntarily. Except I wager you would never pay more or less than what they tell you to pay. Tell me why you are not a slave to their whims.

As with so many, one can question whether you read - it's clear you did not understand and that you took your quote out of context.

What am I supposed to take away from those two quotes, Tim? I’ve read the book and understand the context. I already know Nozick thinks taxation is on par with forced labor, and redistribution is unjust. I don’t understand how quoting from the work I just cited is an argument against what I or Nozick have said. You’re supposed to counter it, not reiterate it. Unfortunately this isn’t the stupidest thing you’ve done yet, but getting close.

But why not answer and argue for yourself? Modern society is built on infrastructure, "infrastructure" broadly understood. Without it, no society as known and understood. And society itself aspirational, continually trying to be better. But it comes at a price. One aspect of the price is taxation. Taxation paying for infrastructure, for the betterment of the lives of all. You call that theft and those who pay, slaves. If it's justice how is it theft? And if society freely chooses, how are they slaves?

Taxation isn’t the voluntary transfer of property. That’s why the transfer is unjust and that’s why it’s theft. Society does not freely choose. Those in power do. That’s why it is slavery.

I can’t wait!

I’ve laid out the argument almost exactly as it was first laid out by Robert Nozick half a century ago.

“taking the earnings of n hours labor is like taking n hours from the person; it is like forcing the person to work n hours for another's purpose”

-Nozick, “Anarchy, State, Utopia”

The argument has generated much discussion which anyone can find for themselves. You are then supposed to give me a reason why it isn’t forced labor or why the argument is wrong. But for whatever reason you dodged it, even straight up ignored it.

As for it being theft, I made my argument.

“When they take your property without your permission, that’s theft.”

You’re then supposed to tell me why it isn’t theft or why the argument is wrong. But you trade your opportunity for vitriol and slander. Sorry, Tim, you’re a fake.

Whether the charges should have been brought is one question, and to my mind not an interesting question, and certainly an ignorant question. The fact is he was charged - with crimes - tried and convicted.

Charged by a DA who campaigned on prosecuting him, tried by a judge who donates to the opposing campaign in violation of the states ethics rules, and convicted by a jury who were given poor jury instructions. They are willing to sacrifice justice itself on the altar of their mental illness.

I have addressed my claim and put it right in front of you in the form of an argument, and here you are on public record continuing to avoid it. Here you are on public record continuing to use the same reasoning found in the justifications of slavery and tyranny. Others witness you do it, your subsequent bad faith, along with your slavish proclivities, and that’s fine enough for me.

Principled Democrats starting to feel stupid about the political prosecutions of Donald Trump. Too late.

Again, you are laboring for the government’s purposes. When you labor for another’s purposes, involuntarily, that’s forced labor. When they take your property without your permission, that’s theft.

I have addressed what I wrote many times now, and to no avail. I’m happy enough that the public record shows Tim Wood possessing and utilizing the same logic of the anti-abolitionists as he justifies the exploitation, theft, and forced labor of human beings so that he may benefit. Thank you.

Taking the earnings from a certain number of hours of labor is like taking a certain number of hours from the person. If you labor eight hours, and a government agent takes 4 hours worth of the earnings from your labor to do with it whatever he wants, you are laboring for the government’s purposes.

Oh, I’m engaging as much as you are, even more, except without the bad faith and vitriol.

But I’ll repeat what I said earlier. Taking the earnings from a certain number of hours of labor is like taking a certain number of hours from the person. If you labor eight hours, and I take 4 hours worth of the earnings from your labor to do with it whatever I want, you are laboring for my purposes.

You're projecting again, Tim. I answered your questions; no response but vitriol. I made a arguments; no response but vitriol.

Rather, it was you telling me I benefit from government, bringing me to recall the pro-slavery arguments from the past, which were nearly analogous. I responded by reminding you that slaves benefitted from slavery, insofar as their master provided for them. That does not mean slavery is good, that they owed their masters interest, that the relationship was just, and should shut up about their condition. You evaded this line of reasoning entirely, for what I think are obvious reasons.

I think there is nothing to fear.

Supposing that Intelligence is one of the least evolved and less complicated faculties of a human being, it appears relatively easy to program something to accomplish a more recently acquired skill, like doing math. But it is probably impossible to program it to perform skills that seem effortless to us (perceive, pay attention, and understand a social situation) because they have been refined by millions of years of evolution. At any rate, we could always just pull the plug.

Nothing I have or do is independent and free of the government. Its scope and reach is inescapable.

me me me

In some years there won't be any you to benefit anything. Meanwhile, civilized society is fairly beneficial. (I suppose you could cancel your membership, and go live on your own?)

You you you.

It isn’t I who is arguing for benefits, so your straw man is misplaced.

It’s an insult to human beings to say they benefit from their forced labor and exploitation because they eat food and drive on roads.

Slaves benefitted from the scraps of food they were given, the hovels their masters built them, the tattered clothes they were given. I suppose they should have just stopped using them, but since they benefitted they owe master whatever the net amount of their benefit they received.

Serfs benefitted from the protection of their lord's army and by using his roads. I suppose if they found misery in such an unjust relationship they should have just stopped farming on their little plot of land, using their lord's mills, and carrying their freight down his roads.

The Stockholm Syndrome is evident. You seem like the type who is grateful when someone steals from you in the off-chance you might benefit from his plunder.

I'm afraid purple prose doesn't make the inquiry any more clear, Tim.

I don't need Rolling Stone to criticize the actual content of their reporting, as I've done that already, and without any riposte or reference to pro-Trump media. No doubt, the anti-Trump Rolling Stone believes exactly what the anti-Trump MeidasTouch does. My only point was to indicate the wind-sock nature of your standards, which disdains Trump's self-hating projection, but finds it interesting and worthy enough to proliferate in MeidasTouch.

Any bias towards the truth doesn't readily accept appeals to authority while completely ignoring the counter evidence, which you'll never witness on MeidasTouch or in the prosecution's case. This leads me to remain suspicious of any professed claims towards facts or balance, especially when it comes from the open prison of some European nanny-state.

Seems like your comments elsewhere answer my inquiry better.

A comment that has nothing to do with your inquiry? Sure.

What gives?

Unless... A tax-free state (with government), no law (enforcement), ...?

What gives what? What’s with the weird punctuation? Tell me what you want to know. “I want to know…”.

The earlier video they posted was the actual video. They couldn’t tell the difference between the “cheap fake” and the real one. 1984. So funny.

But you’re keenly interested in the material from the guy who can offer no evidence of his claims. There was a great little article in Rolling Stone about the MeidasTouch Network, scolding with as “Trumpian” in their dealings. Maybe the self-hating projection is hitting a little too close to home.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/meidastouch-2020-campaign-finance-trump-1152482/

I am tired of people taking my money. You?

Many people love and depend on the state, and I wouldn't dare take it away from them.

It seems to me more an admission of guilt than a statement of any fact. I say this because the man in your last video tells me the reality of Trump's hateful movement is that they are motivated by racial prejudice and the secularization of the nation. This man says that all logic, reason, and evidence shows that "the average Trump voter" (74,222,958 of them) is not concerned with economics, but with the rising racial underclass and its encroachment on their identity and culture. One piece of evidence he provides is that those who were arrested on Jan. 6th (which I'll pretend is not too small sample) come from areas where racial minorities were making gains on racial majorities, none of which indicates their desires and motivations.

So I find another video and here is one from NBC where Trump voters express why they are voting for Trump.

So who is lying?

For instance the MeidasTouch videos you keep sharing. The “network” originally formed as a political action committee to stop Donald Trump. The sole purpose of a Political Action Committee is to influence an election. Personally I much rather hear your own original opinions than theirs and the Biden campaigns, but I fear there aren’t any.

Are you asking if I’d like to see government disappear?

No, I don’t envision.

You’ll just say whatever they tell you to.

I’ll just say it’s his arthritic spine and neuropathy in his feet.

“Cheap fakes”, the new phrase, straight from the Whitehouse press secretary to be repeated by the complicit media. Don’t believe your lying eyes and ears.