[m463]

I've listened to plenty of smart people who have what seems contrary viewpoints that seem to be reasonable after explanation.

for example:

1) more expensive energy of any kind is extremely harmful to society

EDIT: more expensive energy reduces prosperity for everyone. Renewable energy can and should be competitive and cost effective.

2) automatic filing of taxes is more harmful long-term than individuals filing taxes manually

EDIT: automatic filing will lead to silent frictionless automatic tax increases, forever.

3) government funding of internet/broadband/etc is harmful

EDIT: picking winners is more harmful that makeing good public policies.

it's just hard to reason though the details, though it is worth the effort.

My point is that there could be valid viewpoints that are not self-serving/greed-based.

[mindslight]

Effective propaganda is generally based around slivers of truth. The real problem is the people who believe these viewpoints for valid honest reasons, yet end up getting taken in by the people promoting them for self serving reasons. They feel so happy to simply "be heard" that they end up supporting movements not actually aimed at reforming, but rather furthering corruption. This happens to both political teams - in fact I'd say this is the professional parties' primary purpose.

[Workaccount2]

One of the core problems of contemporary news media is that you only ever get exposed to the straw man arguments of the other side. It's just so lucrative to perpetually paint the other side as obviously idiotic, so people can jerk off their ago about how smart they are. Then after years of this they have built a solid immutable mental model of their opponent that is mostly incorrect, but the thing they hold dearest. All so they can keep you tuning in to watch fucking advertisements...

[ggm]

Please summarise these reasons. Frankly, I'm sceptical. I suspect it's a different philosophy not counterfactual outcomes. Some people dislike socialised tax and regulation.

[AnthonyMouse]

Don't the people who dislike socialized tax and regulation have reasons though?

Part of it is that there is more than one opponent. So for example:

> automatic filing will lead to silent frictionless automatic tax increases, forever.

There are presumably real people with this concern, and it's not completely ridiculous. But then there should be ways to mitigate it. Let's compromise by requiring tax withholding to show up on bank statements. Instead of your bank statement just showing that you got a +$1100 deposit from your employer, it's required to show the full +$1800 they paid you and then separate the -$700 in transfers to the state and federal governments for the various tax withholdings.

That should satisfy the people concerned about making taxes invisible because then you're actually giving them what they want. But then there are the other opponents, and that compromise is obviously not going to satisfy the politicians taking bribes from the TurboTax company.

But it's still useful to distinguish them, because you may not need both. You only need 51 votes, not 100. If you started with 45, maybe that sort of compromise can get you 6 more.

[ggm]

Look if reasons are "i don't like it" then that's fine. There's no arguing with personal preference or axioms of belief like "no matter what tax is bad"

The point of argument is when people have to be reminded of the contradictions: if you file a tax claim and claim allowances you acknowledge tax exists. If your health fund demands you also exploit state or federal subsidy you're exploiting the benefits. If your company receives industry offsets or assistance...

[AnthonyMouse]

> There's no arguing with personal preference or axioms of belief like "no matter what tax is bad"

But that's just a straw man. To hold that belief you would have to e.g. actually want to "defund the police" to avoid the need for tax revenue to pay them. Is that supposed to be a common position among Republicans?

The real contention is how much. There is a large difference between the government taking 5% of your salary and 65%, even if taxes exist in both cases. And then if you think ordinary people should be paying less than they are now rather than more, you'll reasonably want to oppose things that conceal tax collection from the constituents who are paying them, because then those constituents will be less likely to notice and object to excessive spending.