Rum wrote:Seth wrote:Rum wrote:It took me about 35 seconds to compare crime rates. You won't be surprised which country comes off worse..
Now compare tax rates...
Exactly. And the lot of the poorest and most vulnerable in both countries. Not to mention free child care, parental leave (480 days), health care, unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, free dental care, old people looked after at no cost to themselves,
If you want to pay half your income, or ALL of your income, so poor people can have a better life, you're free to do so, but what you're not free to do is to force anyone else to do so against their will. Neither you, nor your jackbooted proxies, have any authority to take what belongs to someone else in order to give it to a third person unless those two people have willingly agreed to the exchange. Anything less is merely majoritarian tyranny and outright highway robbery. Your morals are yours to follow, but just as you don't want conservative theists imposing their morals on you, I don't want you imposing your liberal morals on me, and my right to deny your claim on my property is just exactly as valid as your demand that I be "diverse" in my actions. If you can tell me that I must not discriminate against anyone, then I can tell you that you can't have my money because there is nothing that gives your moral imperative any greater moral suasion than mine has, and since they are equal, your demand for my property does not supersede my right not to give it to you.
The only resort you have then is resort to naked, and immoral, initiation of force to take what you want in spite of, and in violation of my rights. And that's exactly what governments, particularly Marxist socialist and Progressive governments do. They simply take what they want without bothering to justify or logically support their moral authority to do so.
But let me guess, you DO NOT pay 50% of your income, voluntarily, to the government so that poor people will have a better life, you bridle and balk and resist paying a dime more than you have to pay, which makes you a hypocrite. You don't have to live IN Sweden to live LIKE a Swede, you can avoid hypocrisy by voluntarily paying the highest Swedish tax rate that would apply if you were a Swede to your own government. Governments never complain when you give them MORE taxes than you have to, you just have to tell them you're doing so.
But you won't. You'll maintain your hypocrisy by niggling down your tax bill and bitching about how much it is and voting for politicians who promise to lower it, as is the case with every socialist I've ever encountered. It's fine if the government confiscates
someone else's property, but it's a crime if they expropriate yours.
That's the very essence of hypocrisy.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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