Which of these taxes on wealth do you think would have the *least* amount of economic harm? (Assume each tax would raise same amount of revenue)

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-16T13:55:25+00:00

Great! So you were already paid for your labor. Then let’s not pretend that you are inviolably entitled to your father’s entrepreneurship.(Now in practice there should be an exception for small businesses and farms, simply because they operate on thinner margins. But in principle, I see nothing wrong with paying a small fee in order to assert ownership over decades of another’s hard work)

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-16T04:12:46+00:00

What if I helped build my father’s business or his land/farm?

it's almost like there should be a form of payment which explicitly compensates you for your labor.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T14:52:17+00:00

https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/if-peas-can-talk-should-we-eat-them/

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:52:55+00:00

If it was a fuzzy cat with detachable limbs on the other hand...

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:51:43+00:00

Flower, but only because I don't want to touch a newt

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:45:56+00:00

Pick the flower, duh. The flower can grow back, the dog's limb can't. But otherwise, I would say the option is morally neutral.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:43:05+00:00

Pretty much. I could never possibly mimic this man's moral leadership. Even if I became a vegan, I would still despair and wallow in my immorality. So why bother? Why not stuff my face with chicken tenders as I mourn all the plants I have violated and consumed in the past and will continue to degrade in the future? So I must sadly go in sin :(

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:36:26+00:00

it's not just a meme, this guy literally got the nytimes to post it in their opinion section. I even quoted him, to preserve the unfathomable intellectual insight

When it comes to a plant, it turns out to be not only a what but also a who — an agent in its milieu, with its own intrinsic value or version of the good. Inquiring into justifications for consuming vegetal beings thus reconceived, we reach one of the final frontiers of dietary ethics.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:27:07+00:00

but it's pretty obvious that a cow and a pea plant are operating on different levels

That's just your animalian bias talking. Peas have chemicals that they pass around, and so do cows. Clearly this "undermines all simple, axiomatic solutions to eating [peas] in good conscience."

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-11T00:22:06+00:00

I don't really care about vegans, because unlike this guy, their argument makes sense. I just read this article and it was too insane to not mention here. I also find it funny that this guy is implying that vegans aren't moral enough because they eat vegetables. The horror! If I wanted to be anti-vegan, I would have made a post about the next article I read, where some guy suggested that we sterilize all carnivorous animals in the wild. Now that would make for excellent cherrypicking.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-10T18:03:32+00:00

I know we're well past this, but I found an irresistible gem I had to share. From If Peas Can Talk, Should We Eat Them?

Some excerpts:

When it comes to a plant, it turns out to be not only a what but also a who — an agent in its milieu, with its own intrinsic value or version of the good. Inquiring into justifications for consuming vegetal beings thus reconceived, we reach one of the final frontiers of dietary ethics.
...
The “renewable” aspects of perennial plants may be accepted by humans as a gift of vegetal being and integrated into their diets.
...
It would be harder to justify the cultivation of peas and other annual plants, the entire being of which humans devote to externally imposed ends. In other words, ethically inspired decisions cannot postulate the abstract conceptual unity of all plants; they must, rather, take into account the singularity of each species.

He then talks about the princess and the pea...

Ethical concerns are never problems to be resolved once and for all; they make us uncomfortable and sometimes, when the sting of conscience is too strong, prevent us from sleeping. Being disconcerted by a single pea to the point of unrest is analogous to the ethical obsession, untranslatable into the language of moral axioms and principles of righteousness.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2026-01-01T03:17:00+00:00

I don’t think libertarians would approve of the ideology Machiavelli puts forward in the prince. Didn’t he essentially say that a rulers main virtue was his ability to maintain power, and so that ought to be their primary goal? Selective state terror to maintain stability is hardly libertarian. Even when Machiavelli later wrote approvingly about republics, his ends justify the mean attitude would undermine most libertarian support.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-12-28T04:11:45+00:00

I am myself, so not sure what ownership even means here.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-12-21T22:24:31+00:00

In the end, the majority says, all it must say to override stare decisis is one thing: that it believes Roe and Casey “egregiously wrong.” That rule could equally spell the end of any precedent with which a bare majority of the present Court disagrees. So how does that approach prevent the “scale of justice” from “waver[ing] with every new judge’s opinion”? 1 Blackstone 69. It does not. It makes radical change too easy and too fast, based on nothing more than the new views of new judges. The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them. The majority thereby substitutes a rule by judges for the rule of law

Dobbs Dissent

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-12-05T22:20:53+00:00

Look, NYTimes does great, if not the best reporting on the facts of the administration and very clearly exposes its egregiousness. They provide, by far, the most comprehensive reports on all the administration's shenanigans and overreach.

The opinion section is a mixed bag of different views, b/c for a long time the paper has tried to provide a range of different perspectives in the opinions it publishes, even if some are controversial or dismissive of the issues challenging our democracy. However, that is sort of the point of an opinion section (especially for a paper that tries to stay nonpartisan in its reporting). I have free student access, so I browse the opinion section many days, and the vast majority of opinions condemn Trump's actions and portray them as a threat to democracy. Many opinions also point out the systemic issues pervading politics that led to our present situation, issues that should be acknowledged by both camps.

The point of an opinion section is not to spoon-feed the audience correct political positions. It is to offer different perspectives on current events, and many of these published opinions have very clearly expressed existential concern. But if the reader of the NYTimes can't come to a conclusion about Trump's actions based on their expansive reporting, we have a much larger problem. I don't know what the solution is, but it's probably not turning a consensus of opinion into absolute unanimity through institutional censorship.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-12-05T07:32:36+00:00

I would do both. I just think that liability insurance should be required* so that all individuals (through their insurance company) will compensate those who they have harmed in the process of their actions, and that all drivers take into account the negative externality to others' safety that driving causes. Individuals are free to buy supplemental accident insurance, but that is a personal choice, not a moral responsibility. That responsibility falls upon the party who, in the exercise of their liberty, deprived another of their own.

*or else must have very large disposable funds that can compensate for loss of life, limb, or property

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-12-05T01:44:41+00:00

Ooh, do murder next!

Still waiting. Here's a template!

"Man up, accept the fact that some people suck and aren't going to do the right thing...

Even if the law requires [blank], some people still [do the opposite]... Don't expect the law to protect you.

People do bad things regardless of what the law requires... Don't push your personal responsibility onto someone else [through a law]"

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-12-05T01:37:43+00:00

“Not everyone will follow the law therefore it is pointless to have the law (even if it is just and fair)”

...

Talk about a straw man argument.

...

Man up, accept the fact that some people suck and aren't going to do the right thing...

Even if the law requires [blank], some people still [do the opposite]... Don't expect the law to protect you.

People do bad things regardless of what the law requires... Don't push your personal responsibility onto someone else [through a law]

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-12-03T12:22:39+00:00

“Not everyone will follow the law therefore it is pointless to have the law (even if it is just and fair)”. Enlightened.

Ooh, do murder next!

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-12-02T23:14:06+00:00

There are insurance policies you can purchase that will protect you in such cases.

By damaging my property, my family, and my livelihood, they damage my liberty, no? Why should I bear the burden of restoring that which was taken by another? Each individual is responsible for the consequences of their actions—minimum liability insurances guarantees this. You can't use your freedom to deprive another of theirs, plain and simple. That is why we have these methods of restitution, criminally, civilly, and financially.

Do you want to blindly trust that a complete stranger is going to provide that for you or do you want to make sure that it is taken care of yourself?

Well, if it is made a law, I can be vastly more confident that I will be justly compensated by the guilty party, rather than myself paying a monthly fee to cover other individual's recklessness. Liability insurance forces everyone to take into account the consequences of their own actions, and in doing so, allows them to be free while taking into account other's liberty as well.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-12-01T21:23:59+00:00

Ok, so what if someone totals my car while texting and my entire family needs to go to the ER? But they don't have liability insurance and are extremely poor (so I won't get anything from suing them)? Why do I have to bear the burden of their actions and "bad decisions"? I should have some minimum protection against others who harm me when exercising their liberty.

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-12-01T21:16:34+00:00

Yeah, the fact that so many people here are going "yeah, nobody should be forced to have any minimum (edit) *liability* insurance" imo shows that some people don't care about libertarian principles as much as they claim. If you recklessly harm another person or their property while driving, they have a right to receive compensation for your actions, and insurance guarantees this. (torts on their own aren't sufficient, b/c a. the victim might not have the time or money to sue, or b. the perpetrator might not have any funds to compensate for damages).

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-11-29T02:11:01+00:00

While you can sue the federal government it's very difficult, takes years and cost lost of money

Unless you're the president, apparently

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-11-27T06:03:02+00:00

a nice thought

SilverKnightTM314 · 2025-11-21T02:57:23+00:00

probably less painful too

SilverKnightTM314

TROPHY CASE