[davidw]

> So a government that collects 100% of your income as taxes would create the most civilized society?

This is the sort of comment that drags down discussions about politics. No one is advocating that sort of thing here.

In fairness, the comment changhiskhan is replying to, that US is "arguably less civilized" is quite a mouthful as well, and is the sort of thing that sets of long, fruitless flame wars that lead nowhere.

[changhiskhan]

I was just trying to get him to clarify his point. There was nothing in his original comment that indicated he believed there was an optimum point between 0-100%. I'm at a loss as to why my comment was so much more inflammatory than his comment about the US being "arguably less civilized".

[davidw]

> There was nothing in his original comment that indicated he believed there was an optimum point between 0-100%.

Would you really want to waste any of your time with someone who believed in either 0 or 100? They're some sort of True Believers and nothing you can say - neither facts nor logic - will dissuade them from their view. Luckily though, this community is mostly composed of cleverer folk than that, something that ought to be pretty obvious.

[gahahaha]

One of the good things about HN is that it can generally be assumed that people are not insane. Nobody in their right mind would NOT believe that "there was an optimum point between 0-100%"

[gahahaha]

"arguably less civilized"

Not sure I agree that it was all that inflammatory. It mas a bit tongue in cheek, but actually has a little bit truth to it. Anyway. You can take the boy out of Reddit, but not ...