[TameAntelope]

I know it's popular to decry every single dollar lost as a critical dollar (the difference between eating and starving), but if you're selling $600+ arts and crafts on Etsy, you should a) probably pay the US government for creating the infrastructure enabling you to do that in the first place, and b) the taxes are not going to mean very much to you in any event, especially considering how we structure our tax system to enable folks making less to pay less overall in income taxes at the end of the year.

Edit: There's a clear anti-government push in this comment section, which I don't think is representative of HN at large. I'm curious where it's coming from, if not organically, though I admit my lizard brain is more likely just pattern matching despite there not being any actual pattern at all.

[_dark_matter_]

This is the amount accumulated. So e.g. 30x $20 transactions, not $600+ arts and crafts.

[TameAntelope]

Yeah, it doesn't matter from a tax perspective. You don't pay more on additional transactions.

[bumby]

I get your point, but how do you reconcile it with the fact that taxes and most social safety nets are on a progressive scale, with lower strata effectively paying less than what they use while upper strata pay more for said infrastructure?

[javert]

Should we be paying the US government to send our young men to die in trumped-up wars that we have no reasonable hope of winning?

a) Vietnam

b) Afghanistan

c) Iraq

That's what your tax money goes to, folks.

Is that what Etsy moms should be paying for?

I pay my US federal taxes, because it's illegal not to.

But, at a fundamental level, it's immoral to do so.

I don't think all taxes are immoral. Just US Federal taxes.

Remember that the Federal government now exists almost purely to serve lobbyists and interest groups - not the people and not the states.

[TameAntelope]

If that's what the officials we elected decide to do, and we don't un-elect them, what else can you expect?

There is no "them" in this false "us vs them" narrative you're constructing. It's just us. We do this to ourselves.

[javert]

That's incorrect. The will of the people cannot necessarily be expressed when it has to be channeled through exactly two parties. The fact of there being two parties is dictated by the first past the post system.

More detailed explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo (this is the famous CCP Grey video with the animals, for those who have already seen it).

Also, even if it WERE the will of the people, it's still wrong, and immoral.

Democracy is only as good as the demos is moral. I judge the American demos to be insufficiently honest and thus insufficiently moral. Basically, each half of the country thinks that about the other half; I simply agree with both sides.

[TameAntelope]

Yes, there are trade offs with the US government's system of electing representatives within its government, trade offs the country seems to be willing to accept, given its lack of mobility on electing people who would make changes to that system.

And while it's true that, on the margins, the will of the people can be nudged one way or another, you still have to find a whole lot of people to vote for you in order to get elected, and those are your fellow countrymen who do believe those wars you mentioned made sense at the time (for example). You may call those people as many names (e.g. "immoral") as you like, they're still entitled to their votes, exactly as you are.

There is no "them", it's just "us". The divisive rhetoric you're employing is, in my opinion, more problematic than the voters themselves.

[javert]

I don't agree with that, but let's not litigate it.

I only still reside in the US because I don't want to pay the exit tax to expatriate. I'm being kept against my will. But I'll make it out eventually, when I can make it make sense tax-wise. Good riddance.

By the way, I live in a US territory, so I have no federal representation, even in theory, personally, even though I pay federal tax. Which is OK, since when I lived in the states proper, my "countrymen" never elected people I believed to be reasonable.

[bumby]

Or: "In a democracy, people get the government they deserve"

[tut-urut-utut]

Would it be ok to send your young men to die in a war that you have hope of winning?

[javert]

If it's a just war, it could be. Depends on the specific case. For instance, it was moral for European countries to fight the Nazis.