General Discussion

I don't care for anybody but myself"...does it?

in another thread around that time, when I asked if you were a materialist, you said you were.

Do you know what a materialist is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism

In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance. To many philosophers, not only is 'physicalism' synonymous with 'materialism', but they use both words to describe a position that supports ideas from physics which may not be matter in the traditional sense (like anti-matter or gravity).[1] Therefore much of the generally philosophical discussion below on materialism may be relevant to physicalism. Also related are the ideas of methodological naturalism (i.e. "let's at least do science as though physicalism is true&quot and metaphysical naturalism (i.e. "philosophy and science should operate according to the physical world, and that's all that exists&quot .

How in the world is my being a materialist relevant to any conversation that we've ever had? In any case, I'm not on this board for the purpose of wearing my emotions on my sleeve for all to see. I'm simply here to amuse myself. At the moment, I find this conversation amusing...hence this post.

and yes or no, do you support paying more in taxes so that people who have little can have the basics of food, shelter, clothing, education and so forth?

and yes or no, do you support cutting your taxes if the cost was that people who have not enough of the basics will end up with less of them?

I'm sorry, but the questions are too broad. If it clarifies things, allow me to present my general take on taxes. Here's a chart of government spending (federal, state, and local combined) as a percentage of GDP.



This chart's moving in the wrong direction, overall. Given my druthers, I would reduce federal spending to about 17% of GDP. This would be accomplished via across the board cuts to all sectors of the federal government, no exceptions. No bank bailouts. No stimulus spending. A somewhat reduced military. Etc.

On the tax side of the equation, I would implement a flat tax at whatever percentage of income is required to fund this level of spending. No exemptions. No deductions. No exceptions. If this raises or lowers my personal tax rate, so be it For what it's worth, I currently pay a combined federal & state marginal income tax rate of about 30%. My gut feeling? That's plenty, and I'd like to see it go down.

Hope this helps!