What's the point again?

[rikaaim]

In my great state of Ohio the citizens have twice voted against legalized gambling.

Well, the great politicians of the state want desperately to make it legal to draw in some income. That's fine and dandy on paper, but they are going too far.

In Columbus the state Govenor and others had a get together to discuss how to get around the state legislature to make gambling legal without putting it to a vote. That way the citizens can't shoot it down again.

After hearing this it got me thinking. What's the point of democracy again?

Feel free to discuss. I have to leave for work, but I may try to find an in depth article later. Maybe someone can find something about it. I just heard this on the news the other night and thought I would share.

 

[Guest]

What's the point of democracy again?

Capitalism is inherently undemocratic. The end of.

Legal Gambling/lottery is called tax for stupidity.

 

[rgraham666]

The West is in a taxation crisis, rikaaim.

Thanks to the way money distorts our political process, our countries can no longer tax the total wealth created inside them. So our governments have to come up with ways to make up the shortfall.

As an example, in the late 50s-early 60s, the large jointly held corporations carried between 30 to 40 percent of the total tax burden. By the early 90s, this fell to 10 to 15 percent.

And no, capitalism does not like democracy. The people tend to put too many limitations on capitalism's actions.

Capitalism had little problem with Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy.

It's why they are so eager to do business in China. Nobody gets a say except the big boys there.

 

[sophia jane]

First of all, the US isn't actually a democracy.

Second- and this is beside your point- I'm all for legalizing gambling. In TX we don't have state income tax because of the lotto. It makes a big difference not having that chunk taken out of the paycheck every week.

SJ

 

[Guest]

Capitalism is inherently undemocratic. The end of.

Legal Gambling/lottery is called tax for stupidity.

Just adding to say that gambling/lottery affects socio-economically disadvantaged stupids (usually ethnic minorities, aka non-wasps).

Your government knows target-marketting.

 

[Wildcard Ky]

Just adding to say that gambling/lottery affects socio-economically disadvantaged stupids (usually ethnic minorities, aka non-wasps).

Your government knows target-marketting.

I've never bought that argument. Lotto is simply a tax on the poor. Gambling hurts the poor. Bull........

No one is forced to buy lotto tix or to gamble. We are all free to make our own choices. Some idiots choose to blow all of their money on lotto or gambling and we blame the lotto instead of the person. Once again, another example of society looking to blame something other than the person that makes the choice. We aren't happy unless we're finding excuses for people in order to shift blame away from them. At what point to we start holding people responsible for their own actions?

Would anyone that's ever been FORCED to spend money on gambling or lotto please speak up. I'd love to hear how you were forced into it.


Back to topic: I agree that it completely sucks that the legislature is trying to find ways around the will of the people. I hope the citizenry of Ohio is able to band together and stop these few people from imposing their will on the masses.

 

[Guest]

No one is forced to buy lotto tix or to gamble.

This usually comes from people who had never been really, really poor in their life.

 

[rgraham666]

Wildcard? For a person such as myself, the lotto is just about the only way out of poverty.

I don't have a high school education, there's little public money for higher education and it's doubtful I'll get money from the banks as I have no collateral. Even if I do somehow get some letters after my name, I'll be in my mid-fifties which will make me too old to hire for the entry level jobs available.

Plus my long and nearly failed battle with mental illness will not look good on a resumé.

And as I found out recently, I'm still not well enough, emotionally, to handle the dichotomies and outright foolishness of the working world. I doubt I ever will be to be perfectly honest.

So please, consider what you say before lumping all the poor together.

 

[Wildcard Ky]

This usually comes from people who had never been really, really poor in their life.

I've been so poor in life that I've had to scrounge change out of the couch in order to buy a few cans of soup because it was still a few days to pay day, and I was literally penniless. That was with a wife and a child.

Is that poor enough?

I didn't blow a penny of my money on lottery or gambling either. I simply wasn't making as much as I owed in bills every month. I was living in a 1 br apt in Denver with my pregnant wife and 2 year old daughter.

 

[carsonshepherd]

First of all, the US isn't actually a democracy.

Second- and this is beside your point- I'm all for legalizing gambling. In TX we don't have state income tax because of the lotto. It makes a big difference not having that chunk taken out of the paycheck every week.

SJ

Beware this fallacy. In TN we finally got a lottery this past year after years and years of the churches fighting to keep it out. We have no state income tax, but we have one of the highest sales taxes in the nation instead - people don't realize that they're actually paying MORE of their money in taxes with a high sales tax than they would with a state income tax (percentage wise.) And it penalizes the poorer people because they pay a higher percentage of what they earn than wealtheir people do, as we are all taxed at the same rate. People don't understand this though. All they think is "We don't need a state income tax."

 

[sophia jane]

Beware this fallacy. In TN we finally got a lottery this past year after years and years of the churches fighting to keep it out. We have no state income tax, but we have one of the highest sales taxes in the nation instead - people don't realize that they're actually paying MORE of their money in taxes with a high sales tax than they would with a state income tax (percentage wise.) And it penalizes the poorer people because they pay a higher percentage of what they earn than wealtheir people do, as we are all taxed at the same rate. People don't understand this though. All they think is "We don't need a state income tax."

I know what you mean, but I think our sales tax is fairly comparable. Plus we don't get taxed on food (is it like that for everyone?). When we lived in OK, between state tax and sales tax and higher car registration costs, we paid alot more than in TX. But those are the only two states I can compare.

SJ

 

[carsonshepherd]

Well, I can only speak for TN. We have a sales tax on food. Other states don't. It's insane. And people think we're keeping more of our money by not having a state sales tax.

Idiots. Grrr.

 

[mlady_france]

I've never bought that argument. Lotto is simply a tax on the poor. Gambling hurts the poor. Bull........

No one is forced to buy lotto tix or to gamble. We are all free to make our own choices. Some idiots choose to blow all of their money on lotto or gambling and we blame the lotto instead of the person. Once again, another example of society looking to blame something other than the person that makes the choice. We aren't happy unless we're finding excuses for people in order to shift blame away from them. At what point to we start holding people responsible for their own actions?

Would anyone that's ever been FORCED to spend money on gambling or lotto please speak up. I'd love to hear how you were forced into it.


Back to topic: I agree that it completely sucks that the legislature is trying to find ways around the will of the people. I hope the citizenry of Ohio is able to band together and stop these few people from imposing their will on the masses.

I totally agree. I am so sick of people blaming the government and every one and thing else they can insted of taking responsibility for their own actions!

The governments local and federal are always trying to skip the votes. There are many issuses every day that our government makes desitions on and we don't have any say in. It's because we have an electes that do it for us. 200 years ago the founding fathers didn't think the general public was intelegent enough to deside these things. Frankly some times I think that is still true to a point.

 

[rikaaim]

I should clarify that I'm not pro or con gambling casinos. I just thought it was interesting that after all the hype of democracy and making the middle east democratic that now at home that option is near stripped from us.

It's almost like saying to the world, "Hey, look at us. We have the best government where the people get to say what's going on. We don't opress our public."

Then after hearing that line we get shafted and government finds away around the public.

It's not that I'm surprised, but it does make this country look negative when it doesn't really have to.

The government officials here in Ohio could simply say, "Look guys," (speaking to the public) "we're in a crisis. We need some money. Let's look at some states that have done well with little negative impact."

Then give some facts and statistics and create a logical argument showing pros and cons and let the people decide if a few flashing lights and slightly larger crowds is better than a bankrupt state.

I know I'm going to extremes, but it's to illustrate how I feel a little bit better.

 

[Op_Cit]

Here we go with the founding fathers thing...

They detested taxes and particularly taxes on individuals. The famous words "give me liberty or give me death" were in a speech railing on a tax of something like 3% over some specific item.

They put a restriction against it in the constitution. A hundred plus years later a conspiracy schemed to put through the income tax. If the founders ever imagined such a thing would happen, they would have changed the wording of the constitution to say: you can amend this constitution for anything you want except placing any tax on the individual or his labor. Actually if they imagined the colonists would eventually do this they'd have begged England to take them back.

Anybody know the legal definition of slavery?

"The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else." - Bastiat

 

[dr_mabeuse]

First of all, the US isn't actually a democracy.

That's right. We're a representative democracy or something. In a real democracy, the laws are made and passed by the people. In our system, we elect people to represent us and carry out our will. There's an important distinction.

If we wanted a real democracy, everything would be decided by referendum: strict majority rule. In our system, we pretty much elect professional ploiticians to get our business done.

Personally, I like it this way. I'm really not interested in poring over 10,000 pages of budget figures or volumes of legislation in order to vote something up or down, and I don't think many of my other fellow citizens are either. We need people who do this kind of thing for a living and are trained to do it. We need people who are willing to do what's right rather than what's popular, and are able to see farther than their own short-term personal interest.

Democracies are notoriously bad at making tough decisions, like sacrificing in the present for rewards in the future, or for doing anything that may cause temporary pain in return for future gain. That's why we elect leaders to make those judgments for us.

This Ohio thing is unfortunate though. Once you've taken something to a referendum and had it defeated, it's pretty hard to justify enacting it. Looks to me like you guys are in for a tax increase.

--Zoot

 

[BlackShanglan]

I agree with Zoot on this one. I don't want to be at the mercy of every passing fad, and I think that a flat democracy is a quick path to that. It's bad enough as it is, with politicians watching the numbers every morning and doing their level best to be driven by them and nothing else. As the Dr. notes, it's damned hard to get anything requiring long-term planning and short-term sacrifice done. Case in point: we know that oil will run out. That it will is not under dispute; it's just a question of when. A prudent course would be to invest heavily now in creating the next technology so that we can make a smooth transition before the situation becomes critical.

Instead, we're waiting. Who wants to pay 10 cents a gallon more to fund it now?

Shanglan

 

[SeaCat]

SeaCat? For a person such as myself, the lotto is just about the only way out of poverty.

I don't have a high school education, there's little public money for higher education and it's doubtful I'll get money from the banks as I have no collateral. Even if I do somehow get some letters after my name, I'll be in my mid-fifties which will make me too old to hire for the entry level jobs available.

Plus my long and nearly failed battle with mental illness will not look good on a resumé.

And as I found out recently, I'm still not well enough, emotionally, to handle the dichotomies and outright foolishness of the working world. I doubt I ever will be to be perfectly honest.

So please, consider what you say before lumping all the poor together.

Huh? Hey wait a minute, I just got here, and didn't even get a chance to read the entire thread much less comment on it and you're calling me out. (Actually I know it was a typo, but I had to get you for once.)

Cat

 

[Quiet_Cool]

I'd say the answer lies somewhere in between what the good Doctor was saying, and Shanglan agreed with. I believe the term is Republic, but that might not be entirely accurate either. The electorate is in place to make the decisions for us, in representation of us, and more than that, their occupations are making those decisions, which, regardless of what we might like to think, does make them more qualified than we are to decide. The "democratic" side of our system is what shoots us in the foot most fo the time. The recent presidential election is a good example of that (I know I'll get flamed for saying that, but...). None of us knew what we really needed to know in order to cast the best vote. We're too busy living our day to day lives to spend 25 more hours a day researching in order to make a properly educated decision.

Basically, while the people have voted, the politicians are probably more likely than not right about what the state needs to move ahead and solve its problems, simply because it's their jobs to know and make said decisions.

Q_C

 

[BlackShanglan]

I'd say the answer lies somewhere in between what the good Doctor was saying, and Shanglan agreed with. I believe the term is Republic, but that might not be entirely accurate either. The electorate is in place to make the decisions for us, in representation of us, and more than that, their occupations are making those decisions, which, regardless of what we might like to think, does make them more qualified than we are to decide. The "democratic" side of our system is what shoots us in the foot most fo the time. The recent presidential election is a good example of that (I know I'll get flamed for saying that, but...). None of us knew what we really needed to know in order to cast the best vote. We're too busy living our day to day lives to spend 25 more hours a day researching in order to make a properly educated decision.

Basically, while the people have voted, the politicians are probably more likely than not right about what the state needs to move ahead and solve its problems, simply because it's their jobs to know and make said decisions.

Q_C

Alternatively, one might choose to believe that politicians have deliberately constructed a system so opaque and obtuse that they can tell us anything they like, as no one has the time for the crusade it would take to work out the truth of even one of the issues. Certainly seems to be the trend in modern politics. Don't eschew scandal or controversy; just make sure that there are so many of them going at the same time, and that so many of them degenerate into "what do you mean by 'is'?" arguments, that the majority of the electorate is sick of hearing the majority of the unresolved, obfuscatory disputes. Then we can get the voting issues back to that nice "US/THEM" divide that most party leaders - weaned on generations of "brand marketing" - are really comfortable with.

Shanglan

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Alternatively, one might choose to believe that politicians have deliberately constructed a system so opaque and obtuse that they can tell us anything they like, as no one has the time for the crusade it would take to work out the truth of even one of the issues. Certainly seems to be the trend in modern politics. Don't eschew scandal or controversy; just make sure that there are so many of them going at the same time, and that so many of them degenerate into "what do you mean by 'is'?" arguments, that the majority of the electorate is sick of hearing the majority of the unresolved, obfuscatory disputes. Then we can get the voting issues back to that nice "US/THEM" divide that most party leaders - weaned on generations of "brand marketing" - are really comfortable with.

Shanglan

A bit touchy, eh?

Truth is, the system that does one, will always be open to do the other. I'm not positive, but pretty sure we just agreed.

Q_C