Your error is that you don’t distinguish between individual votes and the collective vote. Acknowledge the distinction or you’re likely to just continue to go about spouting mystical junk math.

But my example still stands.

Your example stands as an illustration of how a collective mass of votes counts. It doesn’t show how an individual vote makes any difference at all.

I get the feeling it is in my best interest that you believe your vote does not count

My $1000 to your $20 if your vote matters. I’m paying 50 to 1, Chris, if your individual vote changes the outcome of the Presidential election.

Do you know of any individual whose vote has changed the outcome of an election?

Note to all Democrats…Lynette says your votes do not count. It is statistically impossible for your vote to make a difference. No one vote over the last 228 years has counted. Please do this country a favor and stay home in November.

(Republicans, please take advantage of this logic by casting your useless votes in November.)

Since no *one* vote has ever decided the outcome of a national election and it never will, it won’t matter if you’re voting for Bush, Kerry, Badnarik, or Nader, your one vote is irrelevant any way you slice it.

If you, alone, were given special dispensation to cast your vote in blocks of five or six hundred then your votes could be relevant in the closest of states, but since you’re only allowed one vote, Chris, your vote is statistically insignificant in a Presidential race. It’s pure superstition or delusion to think otherwise.

“Remember, it has to be a tax free, all voluntary society…that will actually work.

I am truly interested in your response.”

Chris Said:

“Your up big guy. Make a lucid and sensible argument for a no tax society.”

Chris Said:

“Show that you have a thought out platform supporting your cause, because right not you honestly just sound like a dead beat that wants all the benefits our society offers without chipping inon the bill.

Wow me John. Come on.”

You wrote:

Everyone’s vote for one of the big two is relevant …

…but in fact the election result will be the same regardless of who you vote for. The expected return on your individual vote is roughly zero.

And I’ll take that as your glowing answer to my challenge John. Nice to know you can back up your political philosophy with absolutley nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. You can’t even remotely defend your position.

I am done slappin’ you around John, it bores me. You got nothing.

…your individual vote will still make zero difference in the result of the election. As an individual you don’t get anything like 1% of the vote, you just get one vote. In the entire history of the republic you will not find a single case where your individual vote would have decided the outcome of a national election.

Maybe this time though?

What state are you voting in?

I don’t understand the logic of that. The polls show that for the second election in a row this is going to be a tight race. Everyone’s vote for one of the big two is relevant because it will decide which candidate wins your state and therefore the electoral college votes for that state. That is why the democrats for example hate guys like Nader being in the race. They see him as stealing votes. Why? Because generally speaking the people that vote for third parties are more closely aligned with the Democrat’s platform than the Republican’s.

Knowing that someone is going to be president, if put under the gun most Nader supporters would say “But if I can’t have Nader I would rather have the Democrat.” But in a state where the vote comes in 49% Republican, 48% Democrat and 3% Nader the Republicans win, the Nader people do not even get their second choice and their votes were directly detrimental to their own wishes. So I guess they were not wasted, they were cast with the foreknowledge of advancing the Republican party JUST AS MUCH AS IF THEY HAD VOTED FOR BUSH DIRECTLY.

Don’t get me wrong, I hope everybody here votes for the Bednaricks, Naders and Kerry-Heinzes every time.

We Republicans thank you for your support.

If only two candidates are relevant in a field of only three or four nationally known Presidential candidates, then your one vote is astronomically irrelevant when you consider that it is cast among a field of millions upon millions of other votes.

you said

“That would be dead easy Chris, in fact it’s already done. You don’t pay pay your motor vehicle taxes and you don’t get the magic sticker. ”

So you will NEVER leave your house. Your not allowed to bicycle on MY roads either.

As far as the schools, what about the parents that do not pay school taxes and won’t pay for private schools either? See big post to Charles. When these kids come up dumb as stumps because of their ignorant parents, can’t get a job, there are no publically funded food, welfare or unemployment programs so they have to steal to survive. I will make sure they no where all the ‘easy pickings’ are in your neighborhood. You may think you will have a private agency to protect you, but it will suck. It will suck because there will be people that move into your community and after they are there they refuse to pay their dues that pay for the security. Then they will have lame arguments with you about why they should not have to pay.

you said

“People who didn’t want to use your public agencies could use alternative private agencies if they liked. They could get any of these services for a fee in a free market.”

Perhaps, but I don’t have to respect or acknowledge their false authority. I do not have to ‘be arrested’ by them, your ‘judges’ can make no rulings that involve me and any attempt ‘take me into custody’ will be seen as a kidnapping by a foreign power (you don’t pay to be part of our society so you are like a different country.) You will start a war and your pissant little ‘we pay for our own security’ group cannot stand up to our publically funded military especially since your mercenary security people will quit you like a bad habit when the shooting starts so you will gladly hand me back over unharmed.

This wasn’t even close John. I am not impressed my friend. I am challenging you to lucidly make a case for a workable, viable example of the society you advocate. Not “I don’t have to pay that tax because I could do it this”. A whole society John. Offer something dude. Show that you have a thought out platform supporting your cause, because right not you honestly just sound like a dead beat that wants all the benefits our society offers without chipping inon the bill.

Wow me John. Come on.

That would be dead easy Chris, in fact it’s already done. You don’t pay pay your motor vehicle taxes and you don’t get the magic sticker.

Obviously it would be equally simple to keep parents from sending their kids to public schools if they didn’t pay – do it the same way private schools do now.

And I expect that you could commit any crime you want against any of the non-taxpayers because there is no one they can call, no one to investigate it, no courts to try it and no prisons. Not for the non-taxpayer. Only tax payers get the benefits.

People who didn’t want to use your public agencies could use alternative private agencies if they liked. They could get any of these services for a fee in a free market.

Because their is always someone that wants all the benefits without paying. If you could keep all the people that did not pay taxes off the publically funded roads that would be a different story.

And I expect that you could commit any crime you want against any of the non-taxpayers because there is no one they can call, no one to investigate it, no courts to try it and no prisons. Not for the non-taxpayer. Only tax payers get the benefits.

Really John, Reconcile these anomolies in your response. Remember, it has to be a tax free, all voluntary society…that will actually work.

I am truly interested in your response.

For crying out loud John, make a coherent argument. You haven’t actually said anything this whole time. You explain to me what you think this society would be like, how it would run and how things like interstate highway systems would be administrated in the tax-free society you are talking about.

I described exactly what would happen in my HUGE post to charles. If you eliminated all taxation, the people would voluntarily bring it back, piece by piece, the way it happened in the first place 200 years ago.

And taxes are not compulsory in any way. You can leave any time. There are no threats of violence like charles refers to either. Simply stated, you got to pay to play. But you don’t have to play. It is a free country with a wide open door.

If you want to debate, then debate. All you keep saying is that you don’t feel you should pay your taxes. Justify that stance with some logical and better alternative. Explain how we have a centralized system of highways and courts and cops and prisons and a military and all of the things that we have to have so our country can survive. Because unless you can convince me otherwise, I think the society you want could easily be conquered by a little shithole like Cuba. And then you might get those threats of violence for not paying your taxes. Oh yeah, and you couldn’t leave if you do not like it.

Your up big guy. Make a lucid and sensible argument for a no tax society.

If people would voluntarily pay for public roads and schools in this manner, what do you need to fund them via compulsory taxes in the first place?

If people would actually volunteer to pay for government services you think necessary, as you imagine they would, what possible justification can there be for taxes?

I would love to do just such and experiment! It would give me an opportunity to express my opinion on what was valid and what was bullshit.

Keep in mind that I acknowledge much of what we pay is shit, but that is different than thinking I should pay nothing.

To do such an experiment I would need an itemized, prorated list of all the tax revenues I paid and what SPECIFIC programs and services they went to…

example:
Last year I paid $10,000 in taxes

$900 went to public schools
$700 went to the highway department
$1100 went to law enforcement
$500 went to study how owls fuck

and so on.

The amount I would voluntarily pay is the sum of those programs I think benefit the community I live in and my family in particular. And I only want to benefit the community so that I enjoy living there more. It just so happens that generally coincides with what most other people want, so it coincides with the common good.

This is a different argument than whether or not I think that an enormous amount of waste exists in all these systems and they are costing too much. I also acknowledge that the tax payers deserve a complete accounting of expenditures and that everything the government manages is now terribly inefficient and needs major streamlining.

But that has been the case for a long time. The fact that a program needs overhauled does not make it invalid or mean it should be eliminated. It means it needs fixed.

I think if you actually did this “experiment” with say, a sampling of 100,000 people, you would find that there are many services people are glad to pay their share for and you’ll find exactly what everbody considers bullshit. Which is exactly why no such experiment will ever happen. See, the politicians that voted for the owl fucking study new that only a handful of treehuggers would support it and everyone else would kill it.

But, the a couple of treehuggers donated a fat check to their campaigns. So, they put it in, even though the platform on which they got elected never spoke about such bullshit and the “will of the people” was never really respected on that issue. The “special interests” problem that the politicians will never address because it is too profitable.

Again, strip out the bullshit and I think the vast majority (which is all it takes in a democracy) will be glad to pay their share for mutually beneficial public programs.

I don’t pay taxes for the common good. I pay taxes for my own good. The two usually coincide. I pay taxes for roads. Because a like roads. I pay taxes for schools, because I don’t want to live in a third world shithole, which is what a society of uneducated masses equates too. I pay taxes for police, because I don’t want any anarchists thinking they can come by and take my stuff. It is really all about me, not the common good.

Imagine for a moment that you become the subject of a government tax experiment. All taxes are made voluntary for you, you can donate as much or as little as you like. How much would you voluntarily pay in taxes?

It would also be difficult, by your own argument, to expect mandatory schooling if you were then forcing parents to pay whatever the local schools charged. In the absence of mandatory schooling you would have many, many parents that do not send their kids to school at all. This leads to more and more kids that are uneducated and not remotely able to compete in the labor force. A total class system. The lucky ones get an education and therefore effective employment, the unlucky ones do not. Society was there once, and moved past it because it was better.

Now, since we are not paying taxes to pay for education, it stands to reason that we cannot expect people to pay taxes to fund welfare. So, in absence of education and welfare, whole generations have no choice but to turn to crime and start stealing from the ‘haves’. Now, the only way for the ‘haves’ to protect themselves from this is for police forces and more prisons. Which they voluntarily contribute to in order to protect themselves. But they are paying so much for security it becomes an issue.

So now someone comes along and says “hey, wew could pay less overall and need fewer police and prisons if we just helped these uneducated ones get more skills so they could get legitimate jobs. The ‘haves’ vote on it and decide by a mojority that this is a good idea. Better for all. And as these newly educated people gain employment, they too begin to contribute to the education money, lessening the overall burden.

Now, since all the ‘haves’ benefit from this, it is not fair that some of the ‘haves’ don’t pay into it. Maybe they don’t have any kids, but they do have stuff and money they don’t want stolen. So they have another vote. By a majority decision they decide that everybody should contribute to the fund. A few people disagree, but they are in the minority and since the want to remain part of the community they are compelled to go along.

Holy shit! We have taxes ‘taken’ from everybody, but it was decided by the people, for the people and of the people to do it this way. The way it was planned out for this country to work in the first place.

You are not stealing from Peter to pay Paul. Peter and Paul and Stan and Eddie and Jim all benefit from it, whether they currently have kids or not, and voluntarily pay their part for the benefit they get. Now Frank is over here bitching because he says he has no kids and shouldn’t pay. But he has better employees because Peter, Paul, Stan, Eddie and Jim all paid for it. Frank has more overall security because of what the others paid. So when Frank bitches, the others tell him to pay his share or he cannot stay in the community. You can’t eat the bread if you do not help bake the bread.

Now the community goes from coast to coast and the administration of the education system has become a monster, but the fundamental reasons it was started still remain, the fundamental benefits from it remain, so it should remain. It may need updated, but not eliminated.

And I realize that with the public education system we still have crime and we still have some uneducated people. What we do not know is what things would be like without it. I for one volunteer my tax money so we do not have to find out.

I think it could be scarily like some bad Mad Max movie, with walled communities and more money spent on guards to protect us from the evil badlanders than we spend now. And a lesser world as a whole to boot.

This is FAR different then taking money from us to study how owls fuck. If they ever put that to a vote of the people it would NEVER happen. But the freaking politicians do it without our approval. Grants and subsidies right and left without the input of the people paying the bill. And there is so much of it, done by ALL of them, that you can no longer even have your voice heard by casting your vote. These things are obviously wrong.

But we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot by rallying against the tax spending that is genuinely worthwhile. We are taxed more than any other society ever, and much of it is total bullshit, paying for bullshit. Eliminate the bullshit, and nobody would mind paying the tax bill that is left.

Any body that read this whole rant, I thank you. I feel better anyway :)

We may just have to seriously disagree, but I like the fact you come at me with valid arguments. Many people prefer the “Nuh uh” style of arguing.

Keep on Keepin’ on my friend.

Chris, you weren’t paying close enough attention. Nowhere did I say “education is bad.” I think education is very important. What I think is bad is exactly what I said before: having the government coerce money from me through the threat of violence. Doesn’t matter where the money goes when it’s taken from you in such a manner.

That’s wonderful you were taught well in those public schools. In my case, I grew up almost entirely within the US Army federal school system, so my education is more derived from coerced money than yours. People should be free to pursue an education; people should not be trying to take from me to pay for others.

That’s the principle at stake. If it’s wrong to steal from Peter to pay Paul, then it’s wrong in all cases.

Why do you believe that without public-funded education the country would be mostly uneducated? Do you believe that people won’t set up education businesses to provide services that are quite obviously important for people to partake in so they may do better in life? Do you believe the government is the ONLY entity that can educate people effectively? Do you understand what I’m getting at?

The only honest and moral way to fund someone’s education is when that funding is done voluntarily. Theft versus mutual agreement. If that is “middle aged” thinking, then you and I have a serious disagreement over that is moral and what isn’t.