The Political Thread

[The Legendary Shark]

Humans?

[Hawkmumbler]

Fred Phelps is dying, he's pulled the 'i'm sorry' card and has been kicked out of his own church.



I don't care if I sound like a dick, but how's that for karma.

[Professor Bear]

Ironically, he spent a great deal of time telling people to pray to God to smite the right people so that America could be a better place.

[ZenArcade]

Awful person but wouldn't wish his sickness on anyone. We're more than he was or is.

[TordelBack]

I don't care if I sound like a dick, but how's that for karma.

Pretty sure that's not karma, and it's dangerously close to what he said about every person whose funeral he picketed, but still, I know what you mean.  Can't bring myself to play his game and express satisifaction at his sad end, since his evil antics have probably done more to undermine his general cause than almost anything else. 

[The Legendary Shark]

Word has just reached my Fortress of Sharkitude that there was a budget a couple of days ago. A normal budget, the kind that you or I might construct, is a way of working out how much money there is available and then allocating portions of that money to cover purchase of essentials such as food, shelter, fuel, clothing, dildos, bicycles, medications, water, piercings and i-pigs in such a way as to spread the shortfall evenly in order to delay bankruptcy for as long as possible. Most people know how to budget even if they can't be arsed working it all out in any great detail and everyone has their own way of doing it. My own preferred method is the widespread and popular process of weeping into an empty wallet in the forlorn hope that fivers will magically grow from my teardrops.

A government budget, however, is rather different. As all taxation is basically legalised theft, a government budget is like a polite mugging where the mugger, or "Chancellor", explains to the muggee, or "you", exactly how you're going to get shafted this year in such a way as to make it sound entirely reasonable.

The part about government budgets I don't get is that everybody argues about the details of the mugging to come and nobody questions its validity. The polite but creepy Oxbridge assailant corners you in an alley and promises only to steal a certain amount of your property, wealth, time and dignity whilst simultaneously describing the length, girth and hardness of the cock to be inserted into you whilst the theft is ongoing. The victim is permitted to either like or dislike the details of the impending violation and voice an opinion but must do so bent over a skip with dropped trousers and a strip of leather to bite on. The mugger doesn't even carry a gun because if you're dead you can't be mugged again tomorrow, and again the day after, and yet again the day after that.

It doesn't occur to us to just say no - but as "authority" never asks permission before it acts the opportunity to refuse never seems to come up and all any of us can do is weep into an empty wallet whilst trying to secure a supply of Anusol on the never-never.

[Professor Bear]

Your point reminds me of my dilemma about not giving a toss that Amazon/Google don't pay tax because they don't have to.  Likewise Jimmy Carr using creative but perfectly legal accounting to hold onto his own money - I'm not a fan of Carr by any stretch, but once again: couldn't give a toss and didn't understand why he was apologizing instead of just telling people to go fuck themselves for getting angry at creative accounting rather than the rise in the number of foodbanks, the dismantling of the NHS, or that woman David Cameron murdered.

[JamesC]

It makes me laugh when people try to make out that Amazon not paying tax that they don't legally owe is immoral.
To make that assertion you have to agree that our system of taxation is moral in the first place which I don't think it is. Inheritance tax is the one that really sticky in my craw.

[Frank]

Load of shite. I like working street lights, and I'm pish in a fight, so polis seem like a good idea as well. Not only should all you disgusting, long haired hippies (Amazon included) pay your taxes, you should be happy about it and like it too.

[The Legendary Shark]

James, there's an easy way around inheritance tax that tha aristocracy have known about for centuries: you get your family to put EVERYTHING into a family trust. That way no one person owns anything, everything then being the property of the trust with however many family members you like being trustees. That way, when somebody dies there is no inheritance tax because, legally, nothing has been inherited.

Those crafty old aristocrats, eh?

[TordelBack]

Personally I'm just glad to see TLS on top literary form.  Agree or disagree, that's some quality ranting writing up there:

The polite but creepy Oxbridge assailant corners you in an alley and promises only to steal a certain amount of your property, wealth, time and dignity whilst simultaneously describing the length, girth and hardness of the cock to be inserted into you whilst the theft is ongoing.

Reads like a full gram of Charlie Brooker cut with some 80's Alexei Sayle.  Quality Sunday morning reading.

[Jim_Campbell]

To make that assertion you have to agree that our system of taxation is moral in the first place which I don't think it is.

Our tax system is beset with inequities and loopholes that favour the already-wealthy, but I'm curious as to how you think we get to have a society if you're railing against the general principal of taxation as a proportion of wealth...

Cheers

Jim

[Jimmy Baker's Assistant]

It's certainly possible to argue against taxation, and indeed against a social obligation to pay tax, if you believe that schools, hospitals, armies, dustbin emptiers, pothole repairers, etc., etc. all magically pay for themselves.

Otherwise, you sort of have to accept that there is such a thing a society, and that taxation is a necessary part of it.

[Frank]

Fuck morality as a pretext. What's moral about having to go see a mad crone who lives in a hovel at the edge of your village for a 'cure' when you're going into renal failure? If Sir Philip Green thinks the application of vegetable poultices is an appropriate treatment for Neuroblastoma, he should go and live on one of the many small islands still left in the world where no state exists to impose harsh penalties upon his freedoms. Good luck selling those palm leaf skirts to the locals, Phil.

[JamesC]

To make that assertion you have to agree that our system of taxation is moral in the first place which I don't think it is.

Our tax system is beset with inequities and loopholes that favour the already-wealthy, but I'm curious as to how you think we get to have a society if you're railing against the general principal of taxation as a proportion of wealth...

Cheers

Jim

I'm not against all systems of taxation but I think we should have more of a say over what is and isn't fair. How this would be implemented I don't know but there are loads taxes that seem inexplicably unfair.
With this being the case it seems ludicrous that companies like Amazon are pilloried for following a totally legal method of tax avoidance.

To take Sauchie's example, I think we can all agree that some form of policing needs to be paid for. A chauffeur driven car for the Mayor? Probably up for debate.