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Entry: Greenspan's Gambits Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/greenspans_gambits#5760 Post contents: Joe, why don't you answer my question? do you or don't you think that a 75% rate of illegitimacy serves the black community well? I'm curious what you think. It seems to me, at least, that it might be time to try something different than what we have done in the past - the welfare state has not done much to lift people out of poverty. As the saying goes, Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty and poverty won. There are many in the black community, for example Tom Sowell, Walter O. Williams, or Justice Clarence Thomas, who agree that the incentives given by the welfare system are perverse. Are you going to call them 'racist' too? Name calling is not a substitute for rational debate. The welfare system is certainly not the only cause for our excessive tax burden. Sending troops off on military ventures half-way around the globe to 'make the world safe for democracy,' cosy deals between government and certain of its contractors, foreign aid to kleptocratic third-world governments, unnecessary academic make-work 'research,' and many other projects that bleed the taxpayer could also be cited. However, the principle of redistribution - based on the Marxist axiom, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" - has the clearest tie of any of these to a graduated or 'progressive' income tax rate scheme, as first advocated by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto. It is for this reason that I have spent so much time discussing the welfare state, which goes hand-in-glove with confiscatory taxation. I did not, by the way, suggest that "defense of the progressive income tax is motivated by sloth and drunkenness." What I pointed out is that the welfare system financed by redistributive taxation rewards sloth, drunkenness, bastardy, and other vices - in short, that it is counterproductive and a waste of the taxpayers' money. That is not an attack on you or a speculation as to your personal traits or habits - it is a criticism of the system you defend. Can you not see the distinction? You have presented no contrary evidence. If all you can do at this point is to respond to my arguments with ad hominem attacks (name calling and questioning of my motives), aren't you effectively conceding that you can't refute those arguments factually or logically? Sent at: 2008 11 22