Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...

hanuman wrote:It was a very small step for the Nazis to go from saying that Jews should not participate in German society and German politics to saying that they (the Nazis) had to take steps to ensure that the Jews didn't.

The huge difference between that and what I said, which you continue to ignore, is that I am not picking a particular group of people based on ethnicity, gender, economic strata, etc., and refusing to allow them to participate. I am saying that if someone has decided for himself that he should not participate, that forcing him to participate is very, very bad. I'm defending people's freedoms, and somehow that's being equated with stripping them of basic human rights by force.

I mean, let's get real here, shall we? People who do not vote are ALREADY not participating in the political process - why bother to say that they shouldn't participate, hmm?

I didn't just out of the blue say "you know, people who don't want to vote shouldn't vote." I responded to you saying that forcing them to participate is a good thing. And you have the cojones to say the above. Mind=boggled.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be allowed to participate. I'm saying they shouldn't participate against their will, only because of the threat they'll be fined and/or imprisoned, be taken away from living their lives as they choose to for legal proceedings, etc. And somehow that's twisted around into "that's the same reasoning used by racist, sexist, elitist bastards" when it is 180 degrees in opposition to those bastards. The worst part is where my reasoning was alleged to have anything at all in common with the defenders of the institution of slavery, when I advocate its antithesis. Forcing someone to do something he doesn't want to do is pretty much the cornerstone of slavery.


"People who don't want to be parents shouldn't be parents."
"People who don't want to drive shouldn't drive."
"People who don't want to vote shouldn't eat vote."
"People who don't want to eat pork shouldn't eat pork."
"People who don't want to consume alcohol shouldn't..."

The above statements do not coerce anyone into or out of performing any of the aforementioned actions. They merely state what ought to be universally accepted, which is that no one needs permission to choose not to do something (unless they've previously accepted a contractual obligation to do it). Forcing someone to do anything against their will is immoral and stupid. People do things they want to do much better than the things they don't want to do. They have the desire to do the hard work of being good. Making them do it means they'll do a crappy job of it.


I developed that idea at a great deal more length here.

Oh, come on, everyone knows that people need protein and that people who only eat plants sometimes have a hard time with that, so let's make eating tasty animals mandatory and imprison vegetarians. After all, it's for the children. And nobody can argue with that!

kzt wrote:Oh, come on, everyone knows that people need protein and that people who only eat plants sometimes have a hard time with that, so let's make eating tasty animals mandatory and imprison vegetarians. After all, it's for the children. And nobody can argue with that!

lol... lets start a political party with our new enlightened policies!

SWM wrote: The way I interpreted it is that there is an Imperial tax, which applies to anyone who wishes to vote in imperial elections. This is paid directly to the Imperial government. The Talbott Quadrant has no control over that, cannot limit who pays it, and does not even touch the money. Over and above that, the Talbott Quadrant government is responsible for contributing some amount of money to the Imperial government, as determined by the Imperial Parliament. How Talbott raises that is up to them, but they can't call it Imperial taxes because they have no authority to create, gather, or control Imperial taxes.

Bill Woods wrote: I dunno. This--

runsforcelery wrote: That is, if the Old Star Kingdom represents 75% of the total IGP (Imperial Gross Product), then the Old Star Kingdom will be responsible for funding 75% of the imperial budget. Precisely how the Old Star Kingdom goes about raising those revenues is an internal matter for the Old Star Kingdom to arrange as it chooses, with the understanding that any citizen who does not pay imperial taxes does not have the imperial franchise. [emph added]

seems to imply that there isn't an Imperial tax on people, just an Imperial levy on the OSK and TQ governments. The simplest thing would be for those governments to have one tax that raises enough for the imperial and provincial governments, but it seems like a provincial government could have, say, a sales tax earmarked for one and an income tax earmarked for the other.

Who owns the junction these days? It and its termini are entirely within the OSK, but as the major source of revenue in the SEM, maybe when the Mantie government was split into Kingdom and Empire, the title went with the latter?

runsforcelery wrote: Nope.

Delphic.

'Nope', (at least) one person doesn't understand the imperial tax law? Or,
'Nope', the junction is still owned by Queen Liz, rather than Empress Liz?

Bill Woods wrote: I dunno. This--

runsforcelery wrote: That is, if the Old Star Kingdom represents 75% of the total IGP (Imperial Gross Product), then the Old Star Kingdom will be responsible for funding 75% of the imperial budget. Precisely how the Old Star Kingdom goes about raising those revenues is an internal matter for the Old Star Kingdom to arrange as it chooses, with the understanding that any citizen who does not pay imperial taxes does not have the imperial franchise. [emph added]

seems to imply that there isn't an Imperial tax on people, just an Imperial levy on the OSK and TQ governments. The simplest thing would be for those governments to have one tax that raises enough for the imperial and provincial governments, but it seems like a provincial government could have, say, a sales tax earmarked for one and an income tax earmarked for the other.

Who owns the junction these days? It and its termini are entirely within the OSK, but as the major source of revenue in the SEM, maybe when the Mantie government was split into Kingdom and Empire, the title went with the latter?

runsforcelery wrote: Nope.

Delphic.

'Nope', (at least) one person doesn't understand the imperial tax law? Or,
'Nope', the junction is still owned by Queen Liz, rather than Empress Liz?[/quote]

Yep. :-p

Bill Woods wrote:

runsforcelery wrote: Nope.

Delphic.

'Nope', (at least) one person doesn't understand the imperial tax law? Or,
'Nope', the junction is still owned by Queen Liz, rather than Empress Liz?

On a more serious note, I meant the Junction does not become the property of the SEM; it remains the property of the SKM, a unit of the SEM. Think of it as the difference between federally and state owned land in the US.

On the imperial tax issue, the SEM requires that its components make it universally possible for its citizens to pay "imperial taxes" in order to have the franchise. If the component in question thinks it can raise all of its share of the imperial budget through such taxes, that's fine. If it thinks it can raise only a portion of its share of the budget through such taxes, then it needs to do so. The imperial tax for franchise simply requires that you pay more in imperial taxes than you receive in direct subsidies/transfer payments from the imperial government. It says nothing one way or the other about what you may receive from the component of the SEM in which you happen to live as distinct from the imperial government.

It should also be noted that the notion of requiring someone to exercise the franchise is anathema to Manticoran thinking. The Manticoran electoral tradition is that restricting the vote to those willing to make at least a nominal sacrifice in order to exercise it is the path of wisdom, and they regard what happened to the PH when it transformed into the PRH as a perfect example of why they operate that way. In some ways, the Manty belief is left over from the original founding of the colony and the reason the colony became the SKM in the first place: political power/the franchise is concentrated in stakeholders who are actively invested in their society and, ultimately, pick up the tab for that society. Their taxation system is set up in a way which makes it possible for just about anyone to become a taxpayer to qualify for the franchise, but they feel no compulsion to make it easy for someone to do so.

I do not hold this up as an ideal system, although I do think it has many points in its favor. I simply say this is how the SKM was structured from the beginning.

And is should be noted that if Klaus Hauptman chose to finagle his taxes so that when the dust settled he owed zero on them, he would also finagle himself out of the franchise.

The Manticore system has its advantages and disadvantages. In Sweden the voting system on the local level (city, country "shire") was based on your taxable income. You got one vote per X Daler taxable income (The tax was Manticoran = flat). As there were communalities where one big company had more than 50% of the votes after a while there was a maximum applied to the number of votes one taxpayer could have. Yes, not just people but also corporations could vote. The whole system was based on a philosophy similar to the rules for stock companies. Those who invest most have most to say.

This was in the nineteenth century. The system was changed just before the first world war.

The system for the parliament was different, although equal votes for everyone (including women) was introduced during the first world war.

runsforcelery wrote:
...

On the imperial tax issue, the SEM requires that its components make it universally possible for its citizens to pay "imperial taxes" in order to have the franchise. If the component in question thinks it can raise all of its share of the imperial budget through such taxes, that's fine. If it thinks it can raise only a portion of its share of the budget through such taxes, then it needs to do so. The imperial tax for franchise simply requires that you pay more in imperial taxes than you receive in direct subsidies/transfer payments from the imperial government. It says nothing one way or the other about what you may receive from the component of the SEM in which you happen to live as distinct from the imperial government.

It should also be noted that the notion of requiring someone to exercise the franchise is anathema to Manticoran thinking. The Manticoran electoral tradition is that restricting the vote to those willing to make at least a nominal sacrifice in order to exercise it is the path of wisdom, and they regard what happened to the PH when it transformed into the PRH as a perfect example of why they operate that way. In some ways, the Manty belief is left over from the original founding of the colony and the reason the colony became the SKM in the first place: political power/the franchise is concentrated in stakeholders who are actively invested in their society and, ultimately, pick up the tab for that society. Their taxation system is set up in a way which makes it possible for just about anyone to become a taxpayer to qualify for the franchise, but they feel no compulsion to make it easy for someone to do so.

I do not hold this up as an ideal system, although I do think it has many points in its favor. I simply say this is how the SKM was structured from the beginning.

And is should be noted that if Klaus Hauptman chose to finagle his taxes so that when the dust settled he owed zero on them, he would also finagle himself out of the franchise.

That brings up an interesting question? How are work-at-home wives, that is the traditional housewife, treated under this tax scheme? They don't have an income --- it's all their husband's income.

JohnRoth wrote:That brings up an interesting question? How are work-at-home wives, that is the traditional housewife, treated under this tax scheme? They don't have an income --- it's all their husband's income.

Obviously through joint tax returns.

At a guess no different than anyone else.

Of course I would expect any Manticorean child support and similar could be waived by those who have saved up for the cost, and there may also be provisions for people without any taxable income to pay token Dollar in taxes anyway (nowadays a Manty$ to each of the SEM & SKM).

If Weird Harold's joint tax returns don't apply, the other parent(s) could pay the homemaker* a taxable income to provide a home for the children, albeit that would add a second taxation to the household purse; more likely is that Manty labor law requires employers to provide extensive paid maternity/paternity leave and flexible hours (hopefully a lot more of it than today's US does, and fully flexible as to which parent(s) takes it when, i.e. tied to the kid, not the individual parents), which would mean even single parents could get along without going into the red with the government coffers while staying at home before the kindergarten years (maybe only by getting two kids, or by saving up beforehand, but it shouldn't IMHO be impossible).

* The housewife tradition may not have survived (homemakers would be far more equally divided between the genders), and taking turns over the tax year might not be unusual.

just my WAG.

JohnRoth wrote:That brings up an interesting question? How are work-at-home wives, that is the traditional housewife, treated under this tax scheme? They don't have an income --- it's all their husband's income.