Solutions
Sound economics and civilized alternatives to Democrat savagery
Ethical forms of taxation
- User fees
- Examples: road taxes included in gas prices, entry fees to state and national parks, rental fees for sports pitches.
- Garnishment from dependency-makers
- Examples: parents whose wages are withheld to pay for their kids' school lunches, before they have the chance to spend their wages on beer and cigarettes. Drug dealers who get others addicted to heroin.
- Punitive restitution
- A reform of our criminal justice system is required anyway, to stop the cycles of recidivism and warehousing criminals with each other, reinforcing their violent and thieving behavior. While we're reforming into a restitution-based system anyway, it's logical to use the fines collected from criminal penalties to meet government revenue requirements.
Perps pay: 1. to repair damage they've caused and reimburse their victims 2. to compensate their victims for the time until reimbursement was made (like interest payments, to show respect for their victims' time preferences) 3. Some amount above the sum of 1+2, to ensure it isn't worth it for the perpetrator to commit further crimes as long as they think they're willing to pay. 1+2 is money that goes to the victims. The amount collected for #3 is punitive restitution that can go to other government obligations.
- Voluntary contributions
- Democrats, wealthy philanthropists, and any others who believe in penalizing productivity should be encouraged to contribute as much of their own income and savings as they can bear, of their own volition. Just as medieval monks took vows of poverty to show their sincerity in their faith and dedication to charity, so those who claim to believe in “helping” others through the government can be taxed almost limitlessly by the governments they support.
- Property tax on government-enforced monopolies
- It hurts poor people, especially the homeless, to tax real property, where we must grow food and lay our heads to rest. Increasing the costs of such property disproportionately affects the very people Democrats claim to want to help. Instead, property taxes should be levied on made-up forms of property, like copyrights. Copyrights do not exist in the natural world, like the need to eat and sleep do. They are created by governments and used to stop consumers from doing whatever they want with what they've purchased. Those who benefit from such unnatural monopolies should pay steep property taxes on them: they can benefit from telling their customers not to share data with others on the internet, and in exchange, their monopoly tax can help poor and homeless people sleep, eat, or see a doctor. If a monopoly-beneficiary stops paying the property tax, their work falls into the public domain and their customers can modify and distribute what they've bought however they want.
Alternatives to Democrat tribalism
Sometimes people get attached to the social aspects of group membership, rather than the ideals that might have first brought them to the group. Here are some alternatives for fulfillment of those social needs without the horrible savagery of Democrat economic ideals.
- Republican party
- Although Republican party leadership falls to the same vote-buying corruption found in Democrat economics, the rank and file voters are far less unethical than any Democrat. Sometimes they may suffer from shortcomings like misunderstanding the scientific method, but this is far less hurtful to others than the direct advocacy of Democrat voters.
- Libertarians
- These need not be found inside an official political party, although some are. There are wide varieties of opinions on many subjects within libertarianism, so anyone who can follow the basic ethics of leaving others alone and interacting with them only voluntarily are sure to find some like-minded libertarians with whom to form communities.
- Apoliticals
- As with the libertarians above, once one has committed to the ethics of leaving others alone, community-building can be centered around any other common interests. Those interests need not be political. Community service groups, kids’ scouting and sports events, music and arts collaborations, education, and maker/hacker projects all benefit from increased participation by people who are not driven by greed, violence, and jealousy.
- Religions
- Even some religious practices can provide a sense of community and “fellowship” without encouraging the negative traits of Democrat economics. Buddhism and spiritual humanism are examples of religious practices that don't even require faith to participate.