Man, I have been pushing a consumption tax system (in the form of the Fair Tax Act) on these boards for a long ass time. It's nice to see other proponents here.
It sounds to me as though Camoor has forgotten about his most powerful voting tool - his hard earned dollar. I vote with the dollar everyday. If you don't like something and don't support it - don't spend your hard earned dollar on it.
I've loved Clint Eastwood movies since I was a little kid, but have yet to see "Mystic River" for this very reason.
Also I find it funny that Camoor claims to *support* capitalism. It sounds like he only supports it up until the point that the hard-working individual becomes successful - at which point his wealth must be redistributed to the not-so-hard-working.
You guys love to be generous with other peoples' money.
[quote name='bmulligan']I totally agree with you that casualties in the millitary should be treated better and their families compensated justly for their death. This is not a handout. And, frankly, there shouldn't be tax loopholes for anyone, corporate or private. A consumption tax would help eliminate inequiitites but leave the government vunerable to economic slowdown. That may be a good thing, though, to prod them into creating less restrictive trade conditions to keep the economy growing.
And Mill's quote IS an endorsement of capitalism. Capitalism doesn't necessarily mean corporationism. It starts with individual freedom to trade and associate with others, and ends with the responsibility of trading and associating with others.
And as far as living in the computer age, I learned to program on many an IBM cloned computer that didn't run an MS operating system. MS Windows is a recent invention which evolved and became dominant because of popularity and it's
convenience. (actually, I worked with versions of the OS GUI that MS stole the idea from too). If you want MS to become less important you must stop using their products and lead by example. We have much more power as consumers than any government when deciding which companies should exist and which should not.
"It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. "
-John Stuart Mill
And furthermore, I believe that 95% of what we use computers for is extraneous entertainment. Yezs, we live in a computer age, but we don't
have to. Can you name anything you are currently doing with your computer that you
need to do to survive or make a living ? I don't even care if your job is computer related, it's not really that necessary, you could quit and dig ditches for food if you had to. Cellphones aren't necessary, videogames aren't necessary, movies and records aren't required for sustenance. So statements like this don't carry much weight for me:
Windows is an anti-competitive force, and it has slowed innovation in the field of OS technology.
Anti-competitive ? The very nature of capitalism is to beat your competition; to gain as much as possible, to grow as much as possible. And how can you prove that it has slowed innovation ? You can't. If anything, it's allowed us to work more efficiently, more quickly in the business world, raising the standard of living for many. They have created the standard and you're free to write your own OS if you think you can do it better. If it is better, than people will buy it and you'll be the next billionaire the people will want to topple.
And as a side note, Sun Microsystems is one of the backers of the MS anti-trust suit. Linux variations have some gems in their camp (and some duds too) but the lack of any standard prevents any of them from being usefull an a mass scale where compatibility is key for business intercommunications and commerce. And please tell me you know that Linux was 'borrowed' from another OS too ?[/quote]
ing murder if I took the most extreme leftist bilge that comes from the fringe on the other side and used it to paint the "loyal opposition" in this country?
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