Mandantory Drug Tests

[fdeck]

Good question. Let me rebut with this: Isn't paying taxes already a form of government service? Is paying for permits at the state/county/city level? Anything that can be considered a service or goods given (either by choice or by force of law) can be considered a community service. Just ask older people who don't have kids who have to pay for school levies.

Aha. Now I hadn't thought of it that way, but it seems reasonable. Of course the poor pay sales taxes.

Now it's an aside, but school taxes are the deal of the century. Old folks basically live on the work of others. While many of them paid a lot of money into their pensions and retirement savings, an educated workforce is vital for maintaining the viability of those investments, as well as for funding the social security and medicare systems.

Again, I'm not arguing someone shouldn't or should smoke pot, I'm saying if you do, don't use tax money to pay for it. Just like condoms, just like booze, just like the anecdote I told earlier: If something's being done enough, they're going to change it.

I'm saying the same thing, but applying it to the homeowner subsidy. If people lost that subsidy, chances are they would cut back on luxuries such as pot. Thus it's arguable that homeowners use tax money to buy pot.

 

[fdeck]

On the flip side, most median income or better folks are there because they are exchanging hours of their lives for money. Which makes taking their assets an evil that can only be justified by avoiding a greater evil (i.e. providing essential services). Assuming you're happy with the labour theory of value, of course.

So, yes, people have money because of the common economic infrastructure, but also because of their own hard work.

Of course I don't subscribe to the labor theory of value. I don't work very hard. Today, I sat in a warm office, looking out the window at the nice blizzard, while waiting for a computer to crunch some numbers for me. My job is fun. I don't get paid for hard work, but for the market value that I deliver.

It's too simplistic to describe employment as a pure exchange of assets between two parties. An informed worker would of course negotiate with an employer based on anticipated after-tax income and benefits. Also, both the ability to turn the worker's output into profit for the employer, and even the underlying value of the money itself, are both functions of government involvement. Thus, employment is more like a three way relationship: Worker, employer, and government. Framing taxes as a form of theft is simply a form of demagoguery.

Well, they borrow the money, and receive some degree of subsidy due to government involvement in the mortgage market (hmm, best not go there.... ;-) )

I suppose there isn't a single objective "answer" to your question, just a number of different points of view. I'd describe myself as loosely "socialist about needs, libertarian about wants", which ends up as saying "only net producers get luxuries" In that framework, most - but not all - folks who are taking a mortgage interest deduction are putting in more than they take out. So they're entitled to 100% of any surplus to spend on luxuries.

But if they produce a surplus, then the deduction isn't a need.

 

[GregC]

and yes, compassion is weakness. if there was no compassion, the earth would be filled with nothing but strong creatures. we'd have killed everyone else with no remorse. it is in practice EXACTLY weakness. it makes us human. sometimes its good, assuming its projected at the right people. and like ive said before, addicts arent people.

and the second people start bashing my beliefs and calling me one thing or another, i check out.

ive had this argument a million times and it either ends in a thread closing, or the mods letting people take a **** on the only thing i believe in.

there is no militant action being taken. i do not cause others harm. make all the assumptions you want.

but let it be known that if i take taking a big steamy load on your precious religious beliefs, id get thrown out of here in a second. dont even get me started on jesus.

im out of here.

eat it.

Funny.

 

[Skitch it!]

With all due respect, sonics impression of drug users is deep seeded for a reason, it isn't his fault. Make of it what you will ; )

 

[UncleFluffy]

It's too simplistic to describe employment as a pure exchange of assets between two parties. An informed worker would of course negotiate with an employer based on anticipated after-tax income and benefits. Also, both the ability to turn the worker's output into profit for the employer, and even the underlying value of the money itself, are both functions of government involvement. Thus, employment is more like a three way relationship: Worker, employer, and government. Framing taxes as a form of theft is simply a form of demagoguery.

I agree that taxation is not theft (except if misdirected). It's either a fee for the services I receive (including the whole economic framework provided by government), or it's a subsidy I'm providing to others to cover the costs of the services they receive but are - usually for no fault of their own - incapable of paying for.

But if they produce a surplus, then the deduction isn't a need.

I'm not sure what you're saying here.

I think this is where we're hitting a fundamental philosophical difference. To me, the mortgage deduction seems more like asking person A to subsidise person B a lesser amount than they would have otherwise. You seem to be seeing it as subsidising A, despite the net flow still being from A to B.

 

[sloasdaylight]

Obviously, but that doesn't take away from it being a good example.

No not really. Probably 99% of Americans and people world wide need to either get behind the wheel of a car, or onto a bus/subway/etc to make the money they need to survive.

With the exception of babies already born with addictions, 100% of the human populace doesn't need to shoot, snort, or toke up.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

No not really. Probably 99% of Americans and people world wide need to either get behind the wheel of a car, or onto a bus/subway/etc to make the money they need to survive.

With the exception of babies already born with addictions, 100% of the human populace doesn't need to shoot, snort, or toke up.

Or booze for that matter...

 

[UncleFluffy]

Obviously, but that doesn't take away from it being a good example.

I have to disagree again. Sorry

Maybe if it were "driving a car, that you've been told was dangerously faulty, on a road that no-one else was driving on" I could see it.

To try and find some kind of mutual understanding, let me try yet another, less emotive, analogy.

Imagine I offer you a choice between two sealed boxes. Box A is empty, Box B has a certain probability P of having an apple inside it. You get to open the box a week (or whatever) after you choose.

If P is 100% we can probably agree that choosing B is the same as choosing an apple

If P is 0% we probably agree that choosing B does not mean choosing an apple.

Are we just disagreeing about the boundaries of the grey area in between these two extremes?

 

[GregC]

With all due respect, sonics impression of drug users is deep seeded for a reason, it isn't his fault. Make of it what you will ; )

Yep, I saw the post about his experience. But looking at the totality of what he's posted in this thread, I don't think his past excuses a good deal of it. But I respect you for showing compassion for someone who has disdain for it.

 

[Hawaii Islander]

I have to disagree again. Sorry

Maybe if it were "driving a car, that you've been told was dangerously faulty, on a road that no-one else was driving on" I could see it.

To try and find some kind of mutual understanding, let me try yet another, less emotive, analogy.

Imagine I offer you a choice between two sealed boxes. Box A is empty, Box B has a certain probability P of having an apple inside it. You get to open the box a week (or whatever) after you choose.

If P is 100% we can probably agree that choosing B is the same as choosing an apple

If P is 0% we probably agree that choosing B does not mean choosing an apple.

Are we just disagreeing about the boundaries of the grey area in between these two extremes?

You give a perfect example of dichotomous "binary" thinking
0% or 100%, Yes or No, On or Off, etc. In reality there are countless results for most situations that fall somewhere in-between (the grey area). Organisms, human or otherwise, rarely operate in a dichotomy type of way. In other words: "Always and never almost always never happen in living systems." Absolutes tend to be very rare.

 

[UncleFluffy]

You give a perfect example of dichotomous "binary" thinking
0% or 100%, Yes or No, On or Off, etc. In reality there are countless results for most situations that fall somewhere in-between (the grey area). Organisms, human or otherwise, rarely operate in a dichotomy type of way. In other words: "Always and never almost always never happen in living systems." Absolutes tend to be very rare.

Yeah, that was really the point I was trying to take us to ... is there a line in-between the two extremes where you can say "choosing box B" is the same as "choosing an apple", or are you saying that anything less than absolute certainty removes the link between the two?

I'm coming from the perspective of if it's more likely than not (P>50%), then they're effectively the same thing. But, whatever, this is meandering far longer than is useful. A learning experience but in the end an agree-to-disagree thing, methinks.

Peace

 

[Skitch it!]

Yep, I saw the post about his experience. But looking at the totality of what he's posted in this thread, I don't think his past excuses a good deal of it. But I respect you for showing compassion for someone who has disdain for it.

His past is an unknown quantity, from a very early age. I respect what your saying but compassion in the real sense isn't a trade off deal imo. I hope sonic realises that the effects of his upbringing have quite seriously affected his impressions, I hope he has some realisation of this further down the line, he wasn't born narcissistic, he was made it. He is a 21 year old young man, this in real terms, is not a great amount of life experience. I consider he is protracting his anger from a situation he had no control over onto those he feels personify someone closer.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

and the second people start bashing my beliefs and calling me one thing or another, i check out.

ive had this argument a million times and it either ends in a thread closing, or the mods letting people take a **** on the only thing i believe in.

there is no militant action being taken. i do not cause others harm. make all the assumptions you want.

but let it be known that if i take taking a big steamy load on your precious religious beliefs, id get thrown out of here in a second. dont even get me started on jesus.

im out of here.

eat it.

Even if you aren't a militant edger, you are being tarred with the same brush as those that are.

You know, that's kind of like what you are doing with anyone who drinks/smokes/does drugs.

Not such a nice feeling there, is it?

 

[GregC]

His past is an unknown quantity, from a very early age. I respect what your saying but compassion in the real sense isn't a trade off deal imo. I hope sonic realises that the effects of his upbringing have quite seriously affected his impressions, I hope he has some realisation of this further down the line, he wasn't born narcissistic, he was made it. He is a 21 year old young man, this in real terms, is not a great amount of life experience. I consider he is protracting his anger from a situation he had no control over onto those he feels personify someone closer.

Well, he's shared some of his past. We don't know all of it, I'm just saying that people come out of difficult pasts all the time without as much of a quest for vengeance as has been displayed here. And of course compassion isn't a tradeoff--nevertheless, it does make it harder sometimes when the other party has none (in my experience).

I share your hope for him, I really do. What prompted my post was that it irks me when folks who say other people need to get tougher exit a thread because (at least in part, IMO) the questions posed to them got too tough. And that doesn't include just him. Just my two cents.

 

[sandmangeck]

I'm just glad he left

 

[Skitch it!]

Well, he's shared some of his past. We don't know all of it, I'm just saying that people come out of difficult pasts all the time without as much of a quest for vengeance as has been displayed here. And of course compassion isn't a tradeoff--nevertheless, it does make it harder sometimes when the other party has none (in my experience).

I share your hope for him, I really do. What prompted my post was that it irks me when folks who say other people need to get tougher exit a thread because (at least in part, IMO) the questions posed to them got too tough. And that doesn't include just him. Just my two cents.

It's anger turned inwards, some of sonics posts are very extreme, of course I can see how his opinions would be viewed. But I view this thread as trying to release, we all have different coping strategies and a very different perspective and will react in very different ways. There is no static line we all follow in relation to experience/s, only our own internal perception. I have been where sonic is now, I have no problem in this disclosure, I'm older and wiser and paid quite a price to connect and question that disposition, years of self repair.

I would like sonic to know that he is not alone, but he needs to seek at least some counselling in an effort to realise where this is all coming from, and getting some clarity is the first move. I hope this plants a seed sonic, make that step. I'm not condescending you nor will I, I know that place very well.

 

[fdeck]

I think this is where we're hitting a fundamental philosophical difference. To me, the mortgage deduction seems more like asking person A to subsidise person B a lesser amount than they would have otherwise. You seem to be seeing it as subsidising A, despite the net flow still being from A to B.

It could indeed be a fundamental difference. That would be OK. Or maybe I got things garbled up. I think of it in this way:

The mortgage deduction taken by A is a subsidy to A, who uses the money to buy dope. There's no B. I'm using this as an example of a person who gets a subsidy from the government, but who isn't required to take a drug test, because people seem to be outraged by the idea of somebody using tax money to buy drugs.

For the record, I take the mortgage deduction, and I don't buy dope.

 

[Kitsapbass]

For the record, I take the mortgage deduction, and I don't buy dope.

Same here. That being said, if it was a condition of getting the deduction, I'd get in line to take one.

I guess here's my logic on it: The government makes the rules we play by. It doesn't matter if we don't like it - if they get it in their heads, they can do it. If they decide to put in drug testing to sign up for welfare, or to receive a deduction on my taxes, I can do it and get what I want...or not do it, and not get the benefits.

 

[fdeck]

Same here. That being said, if it was a condition of getting the deduction, I'd get in line to take one.

I guess here's my logic on it: The government makes the rules we play by. It doesn't matter if we don't like it - if they get it in their heads, they can do it. If they decide to put in drug testing to sign up for welfare, or to receive a deduction on my taxes, I can do it and get what I want...or not do it, and not get the benefits.

I know we probably won't agree on this, which is OK.

In my view, the government plays by our rules. The founders of our democracy wrote this in their little memo to King George:

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed."

 

[Kitsapbass]

I know we probably won't agree on this, which is OK.

In my view, the government plays by our rules. The founders of our democracy wrote this in their little memo to King George:

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed."

I understand what you're saying...if the last Congress hadn't proved that was a myth, I don't know what will. Politics are verboten though on TB (for good reason), so that's all I'll say on that. The government, though, acts on it's own accord though sometimes.