Debt To Society

Debt to society? When "society" makes people miserable, desparate, impoverished, in pain, and kills a lot of them prematurely, what exactly do people owe society for? Existence? That is laughable. In China they know it's laughable because they bill prisoners or their families for the bullets used to kill them. That's your effing "debt to society." I owe society more than one swift kick in the ass.
 
MetaKron said:
...what exactly do people owe society for?
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It amazes me when people ask that question!! It just shows a total lack of understanding about what society has provided them ...that they can take such services so completely for granted!

Social services? Clean drinking water piped right to your home; sanitary sewer services piped right to your home; electric power for your home; streets and highways; garbage/trash pick-up; law enforcement services; health, education and welfare; ...oh, my god, the list goes on and on ...and yet people can't see it, can't understand it, and worse, refuse to accept it as services provided by their own society! Sad, truly sad.

Baron Max
 
MetaKron said:
In China they know it's laughable because they bill prisoners or their families for the bullets used to kill them.
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Well, in western nations, mainly the USA, we spend much, much more on society's prisoners and convicted violent criminals than we do on our poor and impoverished people, and more than for our children's education.

I'm not so sure that China's methods aren't better!

Baron Max
 
Baron Max said:
It amazes me when people ask that question!! It just shows a total lack of understanding about what society has provided them ...that they can take such services so completely for granted!

Social services? Clean drinking water piped right to your home; sanitary sewer services piped right to your home; electric power for your home; streets and highways; garbage/trash pick-up; law enforcement services; health, education and welfare; ...oh, my god, the list goes on and on ...and yet people can't see it, can't understand it, and worse, refuse to accept it as services provided by their own society! Sad, truly sad.

Baron Max
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Your response raises the question, why then do we pay taxes?
 
HigherLearning said:
Your response raises the question, why then do we pay taxes?
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Duh? You really can't figure that out? You really don't know the answer? I mean, how old ARE you?

Do you think that all of those services, once installed will last forever and never ever have to be repaired or replaced? Do you think that once those services are installed that they'll never have to be extended to the next new development in the area? Do you actually think that all of those services are totally automated and require no human workers?

You really and truly can't figure out what society needs with taxes?

Baron Max
 
I think he meant, what do we pay taxes for if it's not for those services that you mentioned previously? Meaning, 'society' does nothing for us unless it gets the money from us in the first place, therefore, we owe it nothing; it, owes us better services!
 
Well, I think it's sorta' silly to talk about "society" as if it's some kind of private corporation or something! "Society" is each and every one of us. Sure "society" owes us things, but by the same token, in order to recieve those things, we must also support our "society".

This little "word game" is no different to a husband and wife arguing about who does the most or brings in the most money or such bullshit. They are a married couple, none of those things mean anything UNLESS taken out of the context of the marriage. Ditto for society and the individual.

Baron Max
 
Of course society is not an autonomous machine that provides us with all of your previously stated services without human committment. My post in no way implied that. We as citizens of society pay taxes, which in turn are used to pay people to perform a variety of allotted tasks throughout society involved in the function and maintenance of these services. As 'employees' of society and the direct source of the finances needed to maintain our societal structure, the average person indeed owes society nothing. Obviously this does not apply to those who have violated societal norms in place in order to retain the proper function of society.
 
HigherLearning said:
As 'employees' of society and the direct source of the finances needed to maintain our societal structure, the average person indeed owes society nothing. Obviously this does not apply to those who have violated societal norms in place in order to retain the proper function of society.
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But don't you see? Obey society's social norms, laws and rules IS owing society something! Yes, the average person DOES owe society their obedience ...otherwise, their that society would dissolve rapidly. It's nothing more or less than a symbiotic relationship ...but to say that one OR the other is not liable to their opposite is simply false.

Baron Max
 
MetaKron said:
We pay taxes because society sends people with guns if we don't, and they take our stuff.
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Sure ....you use society's services, you should help pay for it. That seems perfectly legal and fair to me.

Baron Max
 
Baron Max said:
Well, in western nations, mainly the USA, we spend much, much more on society's prisoners and convicted violent criminals than we do on our poor and impoverished people, and more than for our children's education.
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Can you cite some sources for this? Because a simple google search quickly shows that the government spends around $57 billion annually on prisons, $400 billion on education, and $1.1 trillion on welfare for "poor and impoverished people".
 
Nasor said:
Can you cite some sources for this? Because a simple google search quickly shows that the government spends around $57 billion annually on prisons, $400 billion on education, and $1.1 trillion on welfare for "poor and impoverished people".
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You forgot to include all of the legal costs involved in prosecuting those criminals in the first place. However, even that included might not equal the $400 billion, but I'll try to check on it. Thanks for the numbers.

Baron Max
 
MetaKron said:
We pay taxes because society sends people with guns if we don't, and they take our stuff.
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I get the feeling you are trying to be funny. But you're not.

WE - including you - ARE society! "Society" itself exists for our mutual benefit. It provides all those many services that Max listed and several more as well. If you think society is bad, fine. If you ever become injured, then don't bother calling 911 or going to a hospital because both of those "useless" services are also provided by society.

If you want to escape society, then go live alone on a mountain somewhere and you can completely be away from it. But don't even think about coming back to town for anything because the moment you do you are using the advantages provided by society. Forget the Internet too - it's something else provided by society. So turn off your computer now and go away - otherwise acknowledge that you are getting the benefits at this very moment!
 
Yeah. You see, this kind of dysfunctional thinking has never worked. We are most certainly threatened into paying "our" taxes. The fact that we need those services does not change the fact of the threat. Then we get problems because people who set up systems like that generally don't have the best interests of the taxpayers at heart, so we end up paying a lot more taxes than we get back in services and the services are often crap.

Society should rest its hope of getting money out of people on the effectiveness of its services.
 
MetaKron said:
Society should rest its hope of getting money out of people on the effectiveness of its services.
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And if they didn't get enough, you'd agree that they should just shut down the services that don't make a profit?

Dream on, MetaKron, your little fantasy world won't hold up in reality, so, ...dream on.

Baron Max
 
Baron Max said:
And if they didn't get enough, you'd agree that they should just shut down the services that don't make a profit?
Baron Max
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Not that I agree but.... doesn't it seem that this is exactly what takes place? We live, for the most part, in a completely commodified society here in the 'West', and an argument could be made that services that could be provided, are not, simply because they wouldn't be profitable.

I didn't really want to start a completely different discussion here but......
 
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