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[Gay Rights] Gays Ran The Holocaust. No, really.
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This would seriously be an awesome analogy if there were another government right down the street I could just start paying my taxes to that didn't support any of the awful shit that the current one does.
Couldn't you just reduce your income to the point where you don't pay taxes?
I don't know how taxation works in the US, though. I think Sales tax is in a per-state basis and income tax is federal, right?
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Why is this about easy? It's about 600 million people. You're the one who got angry at the 'easy' option of just voting to encourage progressivism in regards to 12-13 million.
Let me just ask outright, Thanatos: do you love your country? Do you contribute to its wealth and improvement? Do you disgree with plenty of the things it does regardless?
Well shit, that's just how a lot of people happen to feel about their religions.
And most people who really believe in their religion enough to attend weekly and donate money? Probably think leaving it is about as realistic as you think moving to another country is.
It's all very logical.
Still waiting for that list of countries that will grant citizenship to all comers, since it's as easy as not voluntarily donating money to an organization with no legal jurisdiction over your life.
According to some guy named Fischer (He wrote a book), Hitler and the head nazis were gay and that's why they made the holocaust, because they were gay and gays are evil.
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What about reducing your income below the threshold, thus getting all your paid income tax reimbursed? Is that not something that can happen in the US? In Canada, if your income is below a certain threshold, you don't pay any income tax and all the payroll income tax is reimbursed.
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And if nothing else: you can always more to some shithole in Africa.
After all, it's the difference between oppressing 600 million people or not oppressing them.
Yes, that's possible, but it's probably not easy enough.
Who wants to inconvenience themselves that way just to make 50 times the difference in terms of oppression of a group?
That's just 50 times based on population, mind you, not actually the impact on quality of life. I imagine most people would rather be LGBT in America than average in Latin America.
And I stand up and talk about how I feel about my country. I do that in places where it isn't necessarily comfortable, either. I also don't voluntarily contribute to groups that try to change my country for the worse. I recognize that there are alternatives to those groups, who I can contribute to, who do the same good with none of the bad. And if I switch countries, I'm choosing from a bunch of countries that all do bad stuff. Unless you're suggesting there's some magical land I can cheaply immigrate to which has a utopian government of perfect goodness...?
Which country do you recommend? I'm fairly sure that you can find disqualifying reasons for almost any country for a whole range of progressive causes and that country's history with regard to them.
This is ignoring the fact that membership of a religion is simply not like citizenship of a country.
SODOMISE INTOLERANCE
Tide goes in. Tide goes out.
Heck, I'd say if you really think that giving money to an organization means you have to take responsibility for any and all actions, going behind bars would be an acceptable sacrifice to make, no?
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I'm not, I'm suggesting quite the opposite: that people, every day, trade a little bit of screwing-someone-else-over for a little bit of comfort and ease. I dunno how much the average Catholic donates a year, but do you really think it's worth (literally) more than their vote going to progressive causes is? Are votes actually that cheap to buy?
That said, I wish I'd started this with use of something that screws over other nations (corn syrup, maybe) that you could opt out of but would be unlikely to, as opposed to being American.
Also, surely it's not crushing poverty, don't about half of Americans not end up paying taxes? Do that many actually live in crushing poverty?
If not in the legal sense, then in the de facto sense of mandatory bribes.
And I have, in fact, elected not to be a multi-billionaire, just so that I wouldn't contribute so much money to the American economy.
So, do you have something specific you can point to in my reasoning that is incorrect, or are you just going to continue using a completely inappropriate analogy to try to prove me wrong?
I'm not advocating just conversion, here (which, let's face it, is orders of magnitude easier than immigration): I'm also advocating advocacy.
And as I've said, I have nothing but the greatest of respect for the very, very few regular churchgoers who show up every week, and audibly speak out for gay rights. I wish there were way more of them. In this aspect, I lead by example.
The people I'm complaining about here are the ones who either actively support the church's anti-gay activity, or sit in church quietly every week, continuing to write checks for the church's lobbying, and then turn around and try to claim that they're pro-gay-rights.
why are you comparing taxes to charitable donations
even in your hypothetical situation where than can magically erase some of the money he makes, that would still be a much less reasonable solution than simply not donating money to a bigoted organization
I don't know would you rather be a free nazi or someone in a concentration camp?
If Thanatos really believes that giving money to an organization means you have to take responsibility for any and all actions perpetrated by it or in its name, I'd say living in poverty would be a pretty acceptable sacrifice to make.
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I have a tumblr.
Check it out.
What about state, local, property? Gas, sales, use?
You can probably pay no taxes by squatting and growing your own food without the benefit of municipal water and electricity.
That's a reasonable lifestyle, right?
Most shitholes in Africa don't fuck over 600 million people, though. It's all about cost/benefit.
But I really think it's self evident that someone can think the net value towards society presented by a group is worth more than the net harm to society by said group. You don't?
Thanatos claims that people who give money to the Catholic Church should be responsible for any and all actions done by the church, regardless of if they agree or disagree with them.
In other words, he's saying that the money you give to organizations gives you responsability for its actions.
The American Government is an organization, he gives money to it, it used it to do, well, bad things. Recently, still. If he has at least one way to not give money to the government, shouldn't that mean he should be held to the same standards as he holds catholics?
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Because 9% think it's too high, and shouldn't be cut! 9% of respondents could not fully
get their arms around the question. There should be another box you can check for, "I
have utterly no idea what you're talking about. Please, God, don't ask for my input."
how many catholics would have to give up their homes, jobs, and possessions to stop giving donations
Surely the simple act of not paying federal taxes is worth enough that an American who wants to minimize their oppression of Latin America should still endeavour not to make enough to have to pay them, yes?
Or that you support the net value of the things they do?
I'm not saying to do it illegally. I'm saying to do it the way 47% of Americans apparently do it.
I've talked to numerous Mormons (whose religion drove the prop 8 debate) and they had trouble contributing their mandatory 10% tithing after the prop 8 debate. But ultimately, the organizations we belong to are both good and bad. I'm glad that America is one where we at least attempt to walk the path of equality and justice, even if we stumble. Go gay rights!
The oppression of 600 million Latin Americans by America is also much more severe than the oppression of 12-13 million GLBT by the Catholic lobby.
There's no need to give up every worldly possession, though.
I believe it's called "Volountary Simplicity"? Loads of books about how to live tax-free. Basically, by cutting in things like TV and the Internet, using public libraries and such you can really cut down on your spending, thus facilitating living with a lower wage. I mean, there's loads of people who live without having to pay taxes, but I guess lowering yourself to their level is too horrible to speak of, right?
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I don't think you can have a net value
it's great that the church feeds the poor and funds schools and so on, but it is still a bigoted organization that actively oppresses homosexuals and people who donate to it should be aware that their money also supports bigotry
But they do still pay taxes, directly or indirectly.
Learn how the system works before you try and comment on it.
OK. Well, I don't think we can have a meaningful discussion if you don't believe that an organization can do both harm and good in different amounts. I'm kind of taking that as a tacit assumption, here.
How does this help American Catholics who are giving money to the Church? It would appear that at best it would show that they have two moral obligations that they are failing to fulfill, unlike Thanatos, who only has one.
SODOMISE INTOLERANCE
Tide goes in. Tide goes out.
You could try Simple Living allowing you to work less, pay no federal income tax (thus not give money to the federal government) and have a lot less weight on your conscience.
Of course, you'd need to move to a state that doesn't use the sales tax to promote bad things and a community that doesn't use the property tax to promote bad things, but that's probably not that hard, right?
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