free speech and fair tax
Two items up on the Caspian-is-a-right-wing-nut-job-who-disagrees-with-almost-everyone-on-his-LJ-friendslist docket today: Free speech and Fair Tax.
Free Speech
Perhaps you heard about the valedictorian who mentioned in her 30-second speech that Jesus loves you and encouraged the audience to get to know him at commencement. She was denied her diploma until she issued a public apology.
Now, I will admit that it wasn't right of her to submit a speech saying one thing, and then actually saying another (not that I wouldn't have done the same thing). But the way that the school treated her comments as disruptive and offensive, to me, is beyond the pale. This is not a separation of church and state issue. This was not a teacher lecturing about Jesus. These were the student's personal words.
And how exactly are they offensive? I mean, if society has determined that it is offensive to hear anyone mention their faith and encourage others to look into it, then something is seriously wrong. If we have determined that you have the right to never hear anyone talk about their religion, especially in a setting where a student has earned the right to address her class and the audience, then I want the right to never hear people talk about certain topics starting with global warming and 9/11 conspiracy theories.
You might bring up the fact that I thought that the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" guy was rightly punished without an infringement on Free Speech. I'll address that point upfront with the caveat that I DO NOT want a discussion about that situation again. I'm merely addressing the difference so as to curtail the cries of hypocrisy. In that case, the context makes all the difference. The setting was a school function/field-trip. The sign in question was clearly designed to disrupt the class event. The context at commencement is that the student has earned the right to speak to her peers and the audience. She should be allowed to say something as benign as "Jesus loves you." And yes, I would want her to be able to say "Jehovah loves you" or "Allah loves you" or "Vishnu loves you" or "the Flying Spaghetti Monster loves you" were she of a different religion.
EDIT:The direct quote from the article is:
"His name is Jesus Christ," Corder said. "If you don't already know Him personally I encourage you to find out more about the sacrifice He made for you ..."
Sounds pretty benign to me.
EDIT AGAIN: She's really cute. And a Christian. I gotta find a friend at Wheaton.
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Fair Tax
I'll start off by saying that I haven't researched the Fair Tax movement exceedingly thoroughly. I know enough to be dangerous and I'm intrigued.
As I understand it, the idea is that while state taxes are still left up to the states, the federal income tax is abolished and replaced with a 23% national sales tax. They say you would take home your WHOLE PAY CHECK. The idea is that the tax code contains so many exemptions for people and organizations that shouldn't get them that it's no longer fair. About half of money spent on lobbying goes toward tweaking the tax code in favor of somebody or other.
If all consumption (and only consumption) is taxed, the door is closed to exemptions for special interests. The rich still pay more because they buy more. Instead of keeping food and such tax-free, everyone will get a $20,000 or so "prebate" to keep basic life essentials tax-free. I don't really understand the logistics of that and have to look into it further. The person I heard talking it up reiterated several times that this is not the same thing as the Flat Tax movement and it still is progressive taxation. Perhaps the "prebate" figures into that somehow.
The money saved by simplifying the tax code (billions of dollars), the hours o productivity saved by not having to file income tax, and the idea of taxing consumption and not income are all very intriguing to me. I've heard their plan is to get rid of the IRS entirely, but I don't know how feasible that is, because someone would still need to administer the sales tax and such.
Thus far, Huckabee is the only one to have bought into this. My guy Rudy (no, resk, I still haven't looked into the criticisms you brought up on him enough to have intelligent discussion about it yet, I'm sorry) doesn't completely buy into it, though he is for massively simplifying the tax code.
EDIT: A huge factor I forgot to mention is transparency. It's very easy to see if a national sales tax is raised and easy to demand why. Much easier than, say, inspecting a 63,000 page tax code.
Your thoughts?
Disclaimer: I likely will not have time to get into big discussions today, so if someone could take over my devil's advocate role, that'd be excellent. I'll try to respond to comments as I can, but I'm probably closing firefox for a while to get some work done.
Free Speech
Perhaps you heard about the valedictorian who mentioned in her 30-second speech that Jesus loves you and encouraged the audience to get to know him at commencement. She was denied her diploma until she issued a public apology.
Now, I will admit that it wasn't right of her to submit a speech saying one thing, and then actually saying another (not that I wouldn't have done the same thing). But the way that the school treated her comments as disruptive and offensive, to me, is beyond the pale. This is not a separation of church and state issue. This was not a teacher lecturing about Jesus. These were the student's personal words.
And how exactly are they offensive? I mean, if society has determined that it is offensive to hear anyone mention their faith and encourage others to look into it, then something is seriously wrong. If we have determined that you have the right to never hear anyone talk about their religion, especially in a setting where a student has earned the right to address her class and the audience, then I want the right to never hear people talk about certain topics starting with global warming and 9/11 conspiracy theories.
You might bring up the fact that I thought that the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" guy was rightly punished without an infringement on Free Speech. I'll address that point upfront with the caveat that I DO NOT want a discussion about that situation again. I'm merely addressing the difference so as to curtail the cries of hypocrisy. In that case, the context makes all the difference. The setting was a school function/field-trip. The sign in question was clearly designed to disrupt the class event. The context at commencement is that the student has earned the right to speak to her peers and the audience. She should be allowed to say something as benign as "Jesus loves you." And yes, I would want her to be able to say "Jehovah loves you" or "Allah loves you" or "Vishnu loves you" or "the Flying Spaghetti Monster loves you" were she of a different religion.
EDIT:The direct quote from the article is:
"His name is Jesus Christ," Corder said. "If you don't already know Him personally I encourage you to find out more about the sacrifice He made for you ..."
Sounds pretty benign to me.
EDIT AGAIN: She's really cute. And a Christian. I gotta find a friend at Wheaton.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fair Tax
I'll start off by saying that I haven't researched the Fair Tax movement exceedingly thoroughly. I know enough to be dangerous and I'm intrigued.
As I understand it, the idea is that while state taxes are still left up to the states, the federal income tax is abolished and replaced with a 23% national sales tax. They say you would take home your WHOLE PAY CHECK. The idea is that the tax code contains so many exemptions for people and organizations that shouldn't get them that it's no longer fair. About half of money spent on lobbying goes toward tweaking the tax code in favor of somebody or other.
If all consumption (and only consumption) is taxed, the door is closed to exemptions for special interests. The rich still pay more because they buy more. Instead of keeping food and such tax-free, everyone will get a $20,000 or so "prebate" to keep basic life essentials tax-free. I don't really understand the logistics of that and have to look into it further. The person I heard talking it up reiterated several times that this is not the same thing as the Flat Tax movement and it still is progressive taxation. Perhaps the "prebate" figures into that somehow.
The money saved by simplifying the tax code (billions of dollars), the hours o productivity saved by not having to file income tax, and the idea of taxing consumption and not income are all very intriguing to me. I've heard their plan is to get rid of the IRS entirely, but I don't know how feasible that is, because someone would still need to administer the sales tax and such.
Thus far, Huckabee is the only one to have bought into this. My guy Rudy (no, resk, I still haven't looked into the criticisms you brought up on him enough to have intelligent discussion about it yet, I'm sorry) doesn't completely buy into it, though he is for massively simplifying the tax code.
EDIT: A huge factor I forgot to mention is transparency. It's very easy to see if a national sales tax is raised and easy to demand why. Much easier than, say, inspecting a 63,000 page tax code.
Your thoughts?
Disclaimer: I likely will not have time to get into big discussions today, so if someone could take over my devil's advocate role, that'd be excellent. I'll try to respond to comments as I can, but I'm probably closing firefox for a while to get some work done.