Politics-Ethics Question

[Kibby]

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Out of curiosity, do you favor cutting existing federal taxes? I would guess that 1/9th of all dollars - that is, maybe 1/3 of all Federal tax dollars - are "wasted" already, no? A fun current example as far as tax dollars go is the death of Gerald Ford: American taxpayers are going to pay for every (non-military, presumably) Federal worker to take the day off on Tuesday to "mourn" ex-president Gerald Ford's passing. Figure that's about .5% of the work year essentially wasted. (My apologies to any federal employee who is genuinely deeply saddened by the loss of our ex-president Ford. I hope I didn't hurt either of your feelings.)

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The amount of money our government wastes in phenomenal. The day off for federal works is silly but doesn't scratch the surface of the waste. That being said, how much of it exactly is wasted? who knows. In terms of the question of taxes in general, its less important how much taxes there are (though that is important) and more important how those taxes are structured. The structure of taxes (who pays them, how, and in what proportion) is the more important question, imho. For example, in the US we have a regressive tax structure. Proportionally, wealthier americans pay less as a percentage of income in taxes then less well off americans. This structure has predictable effects. The disparity in income in america is large as compared to countries that have progressive tax structures. Anyways, that's my soapbox. . .

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The lower end of the economic ladder would (in our hypothetical) be comprised largely of legless, armless folks, many of whom would not protest their own ongoing maintenance.

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Guess I should have said, "Productive members of the economic ladder."

[fretelöo]

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Fret, you use the word 'obliged' a lot on your answers. Could you explain what 'obliged' means in this context? Do you mean that you are obligated to do so if your moral code dictates or do you mean that you should be forced to do it by law and punished if you don't?

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Ok, you gotta cut me some slack in this regard. I'm not certain if "obliged" is the right word or has some "wrong" connotations. Though I might have messed up my wording now and then, you should be fine with substituting "morally obliged".

I'm morally obliged to help elderly people, but there's no law forcing me to.
A mother is morally obliged to feed her newborn though this obligation faces severe legal consequences if neglected.

But as I said, I might have messed up my vocabulary here sometimes.

[fretelöo]

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Under your moral code you should give all that you can to help as many as you can. Size has nothing to do with it.

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Well under your morales you don't give EVERYTHING you have obviously. You give everything that you don't need to sustain yourself and your family or until there is no one left to help. What you are arguing for is communism.

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No, I, somewhat clumsily tried to make that exact point: You give what you don't need etc. But, and this is the point I was trying to make, this makes the 3rd world argument shaky as one against my notion of inaction = some-other-action.

That argument derrived it's force from the fact that
- if it were so that refraining from helping that one baby is equivalent of actively ... let's say 'easing' it's death
- this would be the same with those millions of 3rd world babies. I'd be guilty of mass murder.

That seems implausible. And it is.

But the reason this consequence is implausible is not because the notion of refraining from acting = acting is absurd but because you can give whatever you can, and still babies would die over there.

So, when I say: give that one limbless baby what it needs, then I'm talking about less than you can give.
3rd world babies in view, giving ALL of them what they need would lead me into bancruptcy.
Therefore, I probably should have worded more correctly: "Give what you can afford to give, which in case of this one baby is much more than it needs. Stop whenever it's needs are fulfilled. If you don't do at least THAT much, your inaction is ... and so on and so forth."
Worded that way, one can't use the 3rd world babies as an argument anymore against my notion of action/refraining as you'd simply do the same: "Give as much as you can, which in this case will be no more than a drop in the ocean. If you don#t do at least THAT much, you're inaction is ... "

And yes, this seems rather uninteresting, as more or less "analytical" true... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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Do you believe that the government should support those who are capable of working but either choose not to or don't have the skills to get a job that would allow them to live above the poverty line?

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Well, those are two different groups of people. And, yes, generally I believe govt. should.
Two reasons: First I simply believe that doing this is part of what makes a civilized country civilized, what "constitutes" cultur and humanity. Having culture, value and ideals isn't for free. And I'd rather have values and ideals then a bulging wallet. But others might feel differently (and no, I don't think that it's an infringement (much less a despicable one) on society's members personal rights of freedom if that money is raised via taxes from them).

Second reason is more important though: While in every society there will be some that simply don't want to work and don't want to contribute, and even a few that feel that they have some sort of right to be fed while not contributing anything back while they could, the group of people that will and would if given the chance is far greater.
Whenever you sharpen the rules to make abuse harder and harder, you hurt far more honest people that simply don't FIND work than you hurt those few [censored] that exploit the system.

Personally, we're from East Germany. After reunification, my mothers GDR university degree wasn't worth [censored] anymore. So she enlisted again and for those 4 years or so, we lived off welfare. WE could live a good live then.
BUT: Despite living from wellfare, we were reasonably intelligent people. We didn't bother filling out 20 pages of paperwork to get that new refrigerator if the old one was broke.
Those thousands of >100IQ who routinely live off welfare because there are no jobs for them, they can't do that. They need a new washing machine just as much as we do, but they are unable to do the paperworks.
And that's always the crux of making the rules harder: You first and foremost hurt those who are too stupid to cheat anyway.

So, the answer is "yes".

At core, because of the same reason why I think you should donate money to organisations helping the 3rd world: I knwo that part of that money is going to be channeled into someones private pocket. But not donating first and foremost hurts those, who are starving, not that [censored] who now can't personally enrich himself further.

[blackize]

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But the reason this consequence is implausible is not because the notion of refraining from acting = acting is absurd but because you can give whatever you can, and still babies would die over there.

So, when I say: give that one limbless baby what it needs, then I'm talking about less than you can give.
3rd world babies in view, giving ALL of them what they need would lead me into bancruptcy.
Therefore, I probably should have worded more correctly: "Give what you can afford to give, which in case of this one baby is much more than it needs. Stop whenever it's needs are fulfilled. If you don't do at least THAT much, your inaction is ... and so on and so forth."
Worded that way, one can't use the 3rd world babies as an argument anymore against my notion of action/refraining as you'd simply do the same: "Give as much as you can, which in this case will be no more than a drop in the ocean. If you don#t do at least THAT much, you're inaction is ... "

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Now you're just trying to justify breaking your own moral code. Obvioujsly if you give what you can people would still die in the 3rd world. But say what you can give would save 5 lives. By not giving it you are guilty of 5 murders according to your moral code.

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We didn't bother filling out 20 pages of paperwork to get that new refrigerator if the old one was broke.
Those thousands of >100IQ who routinely live off welfare because there are no jobs for them, they can't do that. They need a new washing machine just as much as we do, but they are unable to do the paperworks.
And that's always the crux of making the rules harder: You first and foremost hurt those who are too stupid to cheat anyway.

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So you're in favor of communism? There is a reason why it doesn't work.

I don't know how it was in Germany but here in the US it is very easy to cheat the welfare system and other government programs. I lived next to a woman for years who was receiving all sorts of federal funds when she was perfectly capable of working.

[fretelöo]

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Now you're just trying to justify breaking your own moral code. Obvioujsly if you give what you can people would still die in the 3rd world. But say what you can give would save 5 lives. By not giving it you are guilty of 5 murders according to your moral code.

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Right. And I stand by that. If I can save 5 lives and I don't, I'm guilty of 5 murders for which I happen to know that I'll never be accused or convicted. If that's too hard on your conscience, too bad!
I'm not justifying breaking my moral code as I'm not breaking it. I donate what I can afford (let's skip the discussion about how high "afford" percentage wise is [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ) and not doing this is morally wrong.

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So you're in favor of communism? There is a reason why it doesn't work.

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That's a bit too jumpy to conclusions, imo. I wouldn't say that endorsing public welfare is a vote for communism. It's no more than a vote for that system that was in place in Western Germany for the last 50 years or so. I doubt Roosevelt would have allowed a camoflaged Communism strive in Germany. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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I don't know how it was in Germany but here in the US it is very easy to cheat the welfare system and other government programs. I lived next to a woman for years who was receiving all sorts of federal funds when she was perfectly capable of working.

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And you happened to not live next to those poor souls who didn't cheat and didn't know how to apply for pencils for their kids.

Every program that's supposed to work will be circumventable. That doesn't mean that the program is bad or should be stopped.

[blackize]

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Right. And I stand by that. If I can save 5 lives and I don't, I'm guilty of 5 murders for which I happen to know that I'll never be accused or convicted. If that's too hard on your conscience, too bad!

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Personally I don't care if you go out and slit 5 throats. You're the one who is saying that inaction=action and that we as humans are obliged to help other humans. The fact that you will never be accused or convicted doesn't change the fact that you are breaking your moral code.

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I'm not justifying breaking my moral code as I'm not breaking it. I donate what I can afford (let's skip the discussion about how high "afford" percentage wise is )

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If you are keeping more than what you need for you and your family to survive you are immoral according to your belief system.

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and not doing this is morally wrong.

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No it isn't

[fretelöo]

Fine. Glad we cleared that up.

[blackize]

So what you are saying is that you expect everyone else to uphold your moral code when you admittedly don't do it yourself and attempt to find justifications(I don't know their names, I have needs too). If we take your moral code to its logical conclusion everyone gives all he can until there is no one left in need or until everyone is in poverty. Sounds like a wonderful yet strangely familiar situation. Oh right it's communism.

[BigSlick75093]

What is the other alternative if the government does not keep the baby alive and healthy? After it is born does it get euthanized? Thrown out in a dumpster? Assuming the baby can breathe on its own and is not on some sort of respirator, then YES, the government must keep it alive. We as a society could never allow these babies to be discarded.

There is no percentage for me to change my answer.

Instead, the government must get the best doctors in the world together to help determine why so many children are being born with no arms and no legs, determine which birth mothers have the highest rate of these births, and develop some medicines or treatments to prevent these births from occuring, or at least develop some sort of test to determine whether a fetus will be born like this, and if so then it can be aborted in the first tri-mester.

[Al68]

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I doubt Roosevelt would have allowed a camoflaged Communism strive in Germany. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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I have to assume by this statement that you are unfamiliar with the history of the U.S. economic changes that occured here during Roosevelt's administration. Roosevelt was a big proponent of communist ideals.

As an example, in the 1920's, the U.S. Socialist Party had 10 major agenda items in it's official platform. Today, 9 out of 10 of those agenda items are current law in the U.S. (I know socialism is different from communism, but the ideals are similar. )

He also picked Supreme Court judges who shared his agenda, so that laws that were always obviously considered unconstitutional by the Supreme Court were deemed constitutional by these new judges.

Most people here, even those who agree with it, would consider Roosevelt to be the founder of the modern American welfare state.

Of course most Americans don't understand the real meaning of the word "communism", just because they associate it with the the "bad" actions of some governments that happen to be communist. Like China's human rights policy that has nothing to do with it being communist.