dennis_jeeves2

Good try at the virtue signaling - i.e you care about society and I don't.

A more honest answer is - "I have never done my taxes and I'm 15 years old with very little life experience".

p.s - you won't get too far if you lied to me about doing taxes, because I'll ask you specifics on what you did.

>Perhaps (doubtful) it's possible to earn that much while being legally legitimate, although that speaks more to how fucked up our system is than anything else, but certainly not possible to do so in a morally legitimate way.

So you automatically assume that: Too much wealth = ill gotten gains?

Genuine question: So anecdotally which country is the most free? Hard evidence can be difficult to obtain, but often speaking to locals and/or living in different countries does give a comparative sense of freedoms.

He's only 15.

All 3 points can be blamed on primarily on your govt, not on someone being rich. Even when the rich influence the govt, it's the govt to blame. Aren't they supposed to protect you? Govt, for the people, by the people etc...

Nice way to put it.

>I don’t even understand why anyone cares about equality.

Because most people are (IMO wrongfully) jealous of the rich. They have a problem with the rich even if it's legitimately earned wealth.

You didn't answer my question:

How often do you do taxes? Are you employed and/or do you own a small business?

These will determine your views.

> You're asking a chicken and egg question, I believe it becomes a self-reinforcing loop

Generally true, with a nuance. The root cause is often people, specifically its people with low IQ. When a society is corrupt you will notice that the mean IQ is lower.

> Should we just leave the poor to die?

You can help them personally, not just the somebody else's money.

>You literally had homes burning down because people didn't pay into the right fire fighter service to put out their homes.

You left out many details. For example many people actually used fires to cook. And then there are accounts of fire departments starting fires off on purpose to justify their existence. And why shouldn't people be held responsible for their own fire safety, just like everything else? [For the records - I have lived in places with no fire department and 911 service]

Real question for you: what cumulative[*] tax rate on your income would you be comfortable with for the services that you are currently getting?

* cumulative = income tax + property tax+ sales tax + all other taxes

>A NOTE ON GENDER: just in case anyone complains, on this page we refer to Jonathan as ‘he/him’. He is certainly a biological male and nobody we know speaks Tortoise so we cannot ask how he identifies, so have defaulted to using is biological gender.

>That sounds far worse than the current system IMO.

Nope. How often do you do taxes? Are you employed and/or do you own a small business?

>Of course we already have people not paying in as much as the should.

How do you decide how much a person should pay? Conversely how can you make sure that you are not paying into the pockets of the govt for services they don't render?

>Who else is going to build roads that anyone can use without being nickle and dimed into poverty? Certainly not for profit corporations.

Road are really cheap. ( cheap = cheaper than paying taxes) More than a century ago in the US about 3000 companies existed which constructed/operated toll roads.

It can be like any other system where you need some proof of payment. For example passes for roads where one has to pay a toll. To minimize complexity there can be a common pass for a bunch of services: roads, libraries etc. The important thing here is that there must be a way to opt out if needed. While it does shift complexity to billing each service, it removes more complexity from things like the extremely complex tax code.

(It does raise the question if the govt should have monopoly on roads etc. but that a bigger question.)

> refusing to pay taxes,

Taxes should be optional to start with. If you pay taxes you get services, if not you don't.

> People whining about how there's nothing they can do basically don't engage in democracy and thats how you end up in a US situation

If I tried to engage in the thousands of laws that I do not like, hat is all I'd be doing. So stop your democracy lecturing. Of course there might be exceptions. Like somebody here pointed out it a feature of the system not a bug. The system is rigged at it's fundamentals.