^ I think southerncross was referring to the level of "progressiveness". The bottom threshold increase has been wealth redistribution under the guise of compensating low income households for the carbon tax.
I've mentioned before how we can solve that problem. Only allow registered tax payers to vote and base that taxable income on the national minimum wage. So if you're 'paying tax' as a welfare recipient - no vote. If you're a wealthy individual and pay no tax through 'legal' avoidance schemes - no vote. Only allow those who actually contribute (financially) to the system get the say in how that money is to be spent. You will VERY quickly see a LOT of those items on the above list come to pass by simple virtue of voting political majority. 'Labor' might actually start representing WORKERS once more in as much as 'Liberal' might start representing the same. Want to have a say in how this country is run? Contribute. Avoid paying for your fair share of the public pie, you get no say in how it's spent. Simple, yet it'll redefine this country's landscape quicker than people can appreciate & by far a fairer system than the one we currently have.
No prime minister has fucked this cuntry more than Gough Whitlem ,except for Bob Hawke, Paul Keating,Kevin Rudd and that redheaded thing Juliar Gillard
Wow, way to make cold hard cash more important than the people who live here. Why not go one step further and make it so the more you contribute, the more your vote is worth? I mean, apart from the fact that a handful of people could legitimately buy a 'controlling interest' in a whole country, that would be such a fair system.
You are jumping to conclusions and twisting my words Big AD, I said nothing of the sort. That said, you already live in a country with people who contribute the least controlling the political climate & policy the most. Which is more fair in your book?
Big A.D. has a good point. Auspm is essentially advocating discrimination based on income. On the surface it sounds like a good idea, but then the following people would get no say, and therefore probably no support: - disabled people - unemployed - pensioners - retirees - scientists - farmers who make a loss during a bad year - youth looking for their first job - stay at home parents - philanthropists - hippies who live off the grid - anyone who survives by subsistence - refugees - prisoners - volunteers - charity workers - church workers I'm sure there are plenty more. At that rate you'd may aswell just prohibit diversity too. It's not the solution you're looking for. The solution is for the Govt and media to man up and stop pandering to welfare recipients. Or you could have your oligarchy.
I don't see how I'm twisting your words at all. You said only taxpayers should be able to vote and that people who don't pay tax don't contribute to running the country. Okay, so if I pay $1 in tax I get the same say as someone who pays $100,000 in tax, right? Well, that's not really fair because they're paying 100,000 times more tax than me and we both get an equal chance to voice our opinions. The only fair way to do it is to make the amount of influence you can have in how the country is run proportional to the amount of amount of tax you pay. And yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds. That's the point. Going down the "cash equals control" path inevitably ends up being about whoever has the most cash being able to do whatever they want because someone is always paying a little bit less than me and you are and that causes resentment...which is how we came to be talking about the idea in the first place.
I agree. It's dumb because that's what happens now. The people with mega wealth tend to dictate what happens. BTW voting doesn't really matter.
As opposed to discrimination on what, 'personal need'? Here in lies the path to socialism, collectivism, protectionism and eventually fascism. The CURRENT system is oppression of the working class and innovation, capitalism and personal liberty. You're advocating the demands of those who don't financially contribute are worth more than those that do, which I am totally against. "The solution is for the Govt and media to man up and stop pandering to welfare recipients" Which is impossible because the government's policy is driven by the mandate of the collective and the collective ALWAYS want something for nothing. THAT is why the system is what it is today and why the west is decaying, it's bleeding itself to death to feed a growing undermining majority. Unless you forcibly kick the feeders off the tit, NOTHING will change for the better. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3KUMexwZeA[/youtube] We have been here before I think. It's ironic that people want the solutions in place, but don't want to change what we already have, but note that the current system is 'broken' and needs change? Don't you understand that the reason why the system is already broken is because of what it already is? How can you have a rational discussion on something when the fundamental corruption of the ideal is held as the most moral absolute? I honestly implore you - and any other - who thinks my ideals are 'evil' to properly understand the basis of my virtues & ideology in the first instance rather that dismiss it out of hand as 'immoral' http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD8C8AAE60CAAE6DD WATCH IT Please. So many people dismiss my point out of hand without understanding the first thing from where it's derived. Any rational, logical realist cannot possibly watch that series I have just linked and still conclude by the end of it what's being purported in your response Dogmatrix is anything reasonable.
I actually said : You assumed the rest through personal bias conclusion. As I said before however, your assumption is ironic given that the CURRENT system we have is influenced most by those who actually contribute the least.
No, we're saying the demands of people who don't contribute financially should remain equal to the demands of people who do. Look at it this way: there are about 13 million individual taxpayers in Australia. Last year they collectively paid about $200 billion in income tax or something like $15k each on average. Say an election rolls around in the future and the political lines are drawn roughly 50-50 between a moderate conservative party and a moderate socialist party. Gina Rinehart decides she wants to spend all of the $20 billion she made last year paying tax. She's got up to $100 billion to shuffle around so racking up a $20 billion tax bill shouldn't be hard. One person now controls a little under 10% of the "Voting Dollars" which is the same amount of influence that 1,340,000 average taxpayers have. Gina sides with one party - it doesn't really matter which one - swings the election in their favour and gets literally everything she wants for the next 3-4 years. She pays the most tax so she gets the biggest say in how the government runs.
I think we're going around in circles here. You're taking my quote out of context Big AD and making assumptions, even further than when I pulled you up the first time. I don't adhere to the socialist mindset and don't want to get bogged down into semantic arguements. Your final point though : Is the point I'm getting at : You see the problem as much as I do, but don't seem to understand that the way out of the situation means abandoning the current model. ie You want your slice of cake (on the idealistic, socialist mindset) and to eat it too (political and economic reform) It's just not possible.
In many respects this is more a discussion related to Hawkeye's recent reconfiguring government thread. You're forgetting that the main purpose is to keep the government entity (an entity that is granted powers far beyond any other individual human being or corporation) under control. Starting from the proven Liberal Democratic model as the current best of any system that has been tried, weighting votes based on contribution is ridiculous because it inevitably leads to totalitarianism. As auspm points out, allowing votes based on people who only stand to benefit but not contribute leads to Social Democracy or worse. The point is how to start with Liberal Democracy and maintain it not how to start it and make it worse. Can use a thousand random quotes but let's take this one: "Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." (Attributed to George Washington) Given a system that starts with a Government entity we want to keep it as a servant no as a master.
The thing with government is there is no accountability. If it was run as a proper business, which is really what it is (mostly in the area of protection services), everything would be itemised, ie, how much you are paying for each service. The government would have proper contracts with each of it's customers to pay a certain amount and get certain products and services in return. These would be all in contracts so disputes could be properly resolved. But we don't get any of that. We get vague promises. We don't get told what are money is being spent on. We don't get a choice in what our money is being spent on (don't try to tell me we get a choice in elections, because that's rubbish.) Because we don't get any of that certainty, what happens? Endless disputes about what is getting spent on what and who gets what and who pays for what, none of which can be resolved because there are no legal contracts. Which just results in endless bickering and the disgusting spectacle of utter schoolyard behaviour by people who are supposed to be adults. (I'm not referring to the people in this thread when I say this, more what you see on TV and hear on radio ) But of course, if we had that certainty, it would be obvious to all that government is not what we are told it is.
Then you'll have to stop coming up with simplistic solutions to complex problems. As soon as you move to a voter = taxpayer system it will almost immediately start being corrupted through the focus changing to much tax someone pays rather than whether they pay tax at all. As soon as you ask the question "Do you contribute?" the next question is obviously going to be "How much do you contribute?" and then you open up a whole new issue of fairness. And what about corporate taxpayers? Don't they have an interest in how the government runs? What about 457 visa workers? What about foreign backpackers on working holidays who are waiting tables for 12 months before leaving the country and never coming back? You mean "Why bother fixing something when we can just chuck it out and get a new one"? I don't even do that with my furniture so I'd hardly be interested in seeing it done to my country. Something not working? Fix it. Maybe not, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Don't give up so easily mate.
Back on topic...... Local gov control the colour of paint I can use on my house. State gov control the age of a home & what the owner can do with it (heritage council) Fed gov makes me sick that the top of the iceberg is 100 rules/laws that just suck BIG time. Talk about CONTROL............. Enjoy the ride, If you got the right ticket issued by the right department using the right ink & correct form. AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH........ Now I am going to take my fed funded medication.
I wish people would give up on this idea of democratic government. It's not some great system. It's not even a logical system. It's this fu**ed up system that we've inherited from history. The sooner people give up on the idea of it, the sooner we can figure out something that actually makes sense.
