Quote from: peels4u on August 26, 2012, 10:31 pmWow, pine actually admits to wanting to pay more taxes!Haha! You agent provocateur you! ;)I want to pay far less tax (if you want a number, I think 15-20% flat tax and nothing else would be enough), but what taxes I pay I would prefer to have relatively fine grained control over. e.g. deciding how much of my tax I pay to certain government departments.Some people think this is a screwy idea, but I think it's far far superior an idea than what we have currently, it would bring accountability to the federal government in a big way.I think of the government as a corporation that offers a service (governance) and if I don't like what they're doing, I feel I should be able to give them the finger and obtain the services of their competitors. Unfortunately this today means moving country, a risky proposition. With you personally directing government cash flow, you can be supporting the government departments you think are doing a good job, and be giving less economic leverage to those you think are being unreasonable with their powers e.g. the DEA for example. You want want millions of people being harnessed for smoking weed, or a couple of new rocket ships? Stop persecuting the pyschonauts and send up more astronauts.It's not a crazy idea, it just hasn't been tried before now. The USA has voluntary entrance to the Army, yet we have the most highly effective Army in the planet. We're not suddenly going to not have an Army to defend us if everybody votes with their tax dollars, people are not stupid. Occasionally yes, but not over periods of time, there is a sort of efficient market thing going on with people's opinions, they're only intractable in the short term. The problem is judging the timing of when you get to vote in blocks of time. e.g. 1 or 2 months (short lived government initiatives) 1 year (regular departments) 5 years (Army) 10 years or more (intelligence programs, NSA, other long term projects etc). We need a way to dynamically change the resolution (using time periods) of when decisions are made about government resources, so that there is no normatives, no fixed time periods for anything. I mean, other than simplicity, why is it the case that 1 president gets control in 4 year blocks? The way we control our government resembles a child's drawing on a fridge in comparison to the artistry of the fine grained touch of the markets. A market can punch like a giant and touch like a feather by using a price system, seems to me there's something to learn there, no matter how left-on a socialist somebody might be.Most importantly, people would become much more excited about decision making that affect their lives if they have some control over the process. Bluntly, I think modern day democracy is doing a fucking terrible job at representing our interests, but I don't believe in giving over my money/rights/power to some small group of people to make all the decisions either (technocrats, dictators, congresspersons...).I mean, you guys know as well as I do, that congressmen and congresswomen barely read the propositions they pass laws on. Indivdually most of them are smart people, but as a collective they might as well be a Alzheimer's patient.Basically, the USA is a Republic, and while that's an improvement on direct democracy in terms of reaction time, the concept of "Republic" has had its day. We need a different abstraction now. The Chinese rightly laugh at us compelling them to become a democracy when technically we don't have one either, our system is closer to theirs than a direct democracy, I don't think Americans have been paying too much attention in Civics class. China actually does have a democracy. People vote there alright, but you have to be part of the Communist Party to make it mean anything. What they actually lack is a genuine Republic. That's not quite the same thing is it?I think this is a place where Left wingers and Right wingers can amicably meet each other in the middle, agree to disagree on some things, and make some real progress.The main problem is the apathy you see today. People have lost faith, big time, in government. Then they see potholes in the roads while whompingly large sums of money are wasted on stupid things like 1 trillion dollars down the drain on the Air force's new fighter jets, which still don't really exist yet and have just 1 or 2 air to air missiles per craft, and they become more apathetic, which is understandable, but it's not going to change until they fight back and change shit.I do think things will change in the early 21st century, but I'm not sure if it's going to involve votes or bullets to be honest, I think we may be overdue a genuine revolution, pitchforks and all.