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Mason Brenhouse

What is Wrong with Inheritance Taxation? | Newsflavor - 0 views

  • Some people think that inheritance taxes are the right way to redistribute wealth. But does it really do that? In effect, they just provide governments with more money to squander. If they really should redistribute wealth, they should be excluded from the normal government income and allocated in a special fund earmarked for the purpose. Some people think that inheritance taxes are downright wrong; taking away already taxed and hard earned money from people who earned it.
  • What happens when you tax an inheritance? Applying British standards, 50 percent of the inheritance gets lost to the government coffers. If this money is sitting in a savings account or in a safe, the fact might be annoying to the heir, but hardly life threatening to anyone. If the money on the other hand is sitting in a company providing work to people, losing half the money could mean the end of the company. This second case in fact doesn’t redistribute wealth, it kills it
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    According to this article the taxation of inheritance is actually an ineffective and actually steals hard earned money from the people who actually went out and earned it. It goes on to say that relatively 50% of inheritance is actually lost to the government. It speaks about working capitol which is money that is actively contributing to the economy and dead capital which is money that is lying dormant somewhere being saved. 
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    This is a very interesting article but make sure to use it as a secondary point and not your main argument.
Mason Brenhouse

Libertarian Party of Canada - 0 views

  • Government is force. Libertarians believe in a win-win voluntary society where people cooperate through trade and charity. The moral issue here is that Libertarians believe that it is not right to take forcefully from one person in order to provide for another's needs. Libertarians believe in minimizing taxation and funding government by other means if possible. Welfare for those in need should be provided through voluntary means. Forcing others to "give" is not just or generous. Government should not be deciding who needs welfare, because welfare is damaging to some people because it encourages dependency, lack of initiative, and poor planning. A free economy will produce more wealth for everyone. Taxation is robbing people of their wealth and the ability to invest that wealth in new business, which would benefit the poor.
  • Think of the possibilities for giving in a society with extremely low taxation. People are concerned about providing for their own families and living responsibly and they need to be free to make their own decisions with their money. Most people in our daily lives are good most of the time - otherwise society wouldn't function - we trust people enough as equals. However, the more power we give to others, the more skewed things become. As Lord Acton said, Power corrupts.
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    This is a site run by the Libertarians of Canada. They believe in minimizing the total amount of taxation. They also believe in the pricipal that someone's property is solely their's and no one else has the right to take it, even the government. 
Catherine Delisle

Canada Accused of Torture Collusion - Huffington Post - 1 views

    • Catherine Delisle
       
      In 2002 and 2006, Canada was instensly pressured by Washington to drag 2500 combat troops to the war in Afghanistan, which Canada did. They were then accused of their involvement in torture in the Afghan torture. Richard Colvin, who is a Canadian diplomat, revealed that the government has been sending Afghan prisoner to the secret police of the Kabul government, where prisoners are tortured and executed. Canada claims that they were unaware that Afghan prisons were being used as torture centers by the Communists. These tortures included many horrible things such as burning, beating, raping, sexual humiliations, though Canada claims to be unaware of this even if the Amnesty International and the Red Cross warned Ottawa that the prisoners that Canada was sending were being treated this way. Yet, they kept sending this prisoners over to the Afghan NDS, which is a violation of the Geneva Convection and human rights.
Lauren Ganze

The Taxpayer's Bill of Rights - 0 views

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    This site has a link to a PDF file that is the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. I thought that this would help in the debate to prove that taxation isn't theft because in this scenario, the supposed thief (governement) is giving rights to the people it is "stealing" from. This proves that the government isn't stealing our money: it is taking a percentage of our incomes so that it may better maintain the society we treasure and thrive in. The PDF contains the 15 rights that a taxpayer enjoys.
Lauren Ganze

Canada Revenue Agency - 0 views

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    I thought this site might prove useful, and it did. It's a government site that holds links to the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which contains the 15 rights that a taxpayer holds.
Daryl Bambic

Alain de Botton: How to stop news from ruining our lives - CNN.com - 0 views

  • a pool of independent thinkers
    • Daryl Bambic
       
      This is an obvious reference to philosophers.
  • The news is the best distraction ever invented.
  • There are countless difficult things hiding away deep within us which we should give some thought
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  • We need news sabbaths
  • e need long train journeys on which we have no wireless signal and nothing to read, where our carriage is mostly empty,
  • We need plane journeys when we have a window seat and nothing else to focus on for two or three hours but the tops of clouds and our own thoughts.
  • counterweights to our anxieties and self-absorption
  • A flourishing life requires a capacity to recognize the times when the news no longer has anything original or important to teach us; periods when we should refuse imaginative connection with strangers, when we must leave the business of governing, triumphing, failing, creating or killing to others, in the knowledge that we have our own objectives to honor in the brief time still allotted to us.
Ali Goldman

Abu Ghraib - 0 views

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    This website shows how torture is used in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. There are many examples of torture and what is going on there. The government knows about what is happening in this prison.
Kelsey Adams

Correctional Service Canada- Torture Laws - 3 views

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    In this text we learn how Canada has strict rules against the torture of prisoners. The government believes that no matter what, we must respect the dignity of a human being and that no cruel punishments should ever be brought upon prisoners. There is said to be no international treaty that deals exclusively with the treatment of prisoners and the conditions of incarceration but one of the more known and respected instrument that deals with the rights of these criminals is the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
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    Kelsey, This text is pretty interesting because while reading it, I learned a lot about Canada's correctional service system. I know about the basics but some things were explained in detail and I learned things that I never knew before. Now I will be able to link specific cases with our correctional system and get a better understanding!
dunya darwiche

Debate.org | Interrogators should have the legal right to torture terrorists. - 0 views

  • An interrogation is deliberately causing someone pain or anguish in order to extract information out of them.
  • Mind control drugs, sleep deprivation, good cop-bad cop techniques, and verbal intimidation are a few interrogation techniques that are currently legal.
  • Sometimes you have to do wrong thing for the right reason.
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  • chinese water method
  • Wouldn't the government have a moral duty to do whatever is necessary to get the information out of the suspect? Using violence to protect innocent people isn't morally wrong. It's self defense.
  • Water boarding
  • The Rack
  • Chinese Water Torture
  • "Truly Torture
  • New York Times Article entitled
Kayla Korman

euthanasia - 0 views

  • By denying them their right to euthanasia, the government satisfies its own moral standards but ignores the outcome of its action. Some patients cannot bear the excruciating agony that accompanies terminal illness and when they cannot obtain physician-assisted suicide, try to kill themselves even though they may not be in a condition to do so. They may also beg for the help of loved ones not trained in medicine in their suicide. As a result, the suicide may often be messy, painful and sometimes unsuccessful. It is unfair on the family and friends of the patients to have to go through such a nightmare when all they want is to free their loved ones of pain and torment.
  • In addition, doctors are afraid to openly discuss end-of-life decisions with patients due to illegalities. This prevents an open and honest relationship between doctor and patient in which the doctor can discover the patient's wishes regarding his/her own life and death.
  • Currently there are cases of misuse of euthanasia, for example in cases where the patient is pressured by family members to give consent to the ending of their lives. The legalization of voluntary euthanasia provides an opportunity for safeguards against just such a situation, and other instances of coercion and fraud. The legalizing of voluntary euthanasia would provide a set of guidelines and regulations for the parties involved to follow, such as psychological counseling and psychiatric evaluation
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  • right of every human being to make decisions regarding his own body and have these decisions respected.
  • right of every human being to make decisions regarding his own body and have these decisions respected.
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    this site gives really good example and situations where Euthanasia would be very positive
sydney goldman

why taxation makes sense - 0 views

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    This site shows the alternative to taxes and how our tax system is a lot more convenient at a local level. Anok (the blog writer) makes a point to explain that even without government we would still need some form of taxes and answer the much asked question "is taxation theft?".
Mason Brenhouse

Taxation is Theft Because it's Involuntary and Permanently Denies People their Property... - 1 views

  • Taxation is theft because it is the use of aggression to deny another person their property. It doesn’t matter what their property is to be used for or what complicated arguments are made to justify it. Taxation is involuntary and it results in a person’s property being permanently taken. This is all that is necessary for our thesis to be proven.
  • Yet others will claim that taxes are payment for those services government provides. What if one doesn’t want those services? What if they are substandard? There are no answers to these questions because these alleged services are provided involuntarily. You can hardly call that a voluntary arrangement.
  • Taxation is theft because it involves a first use of violence in order to permanently acquire someone else’s property. State apologists may make excuses or wild conjecture in a vain attempt to justify this theft. But the fact remains that is theft. The only valid way to acquire someone else’s property is through voluntary interaction. Taxation is involuntary.
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    This is an article that has several points as to why taxation is theft. Firstly, taxation is theft because it is the use of aggression to deny another person their property.This is because it involves the use of violence in order to permanently acquire someone else's property. As we know, taxes are used in order to give certain services to citizens. However, what if these citizens do not want these services? This is why taxation is considered theft. 
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    I think that this is a very good website because it shows that taxation is theft because it is taking away someones property. I also like the point that shows how it uses violence and how some people do not want the services that are provided from paying taxes.
Catherine Delisle

Arguments Against Euthanasia - 2 views

    • Catherine Delisle
       
      This web site is very informative for my team and I because it explains many credible arguments against euthanasia. First of all, it explains in detail the terms "terminally ill", which is often used as a reason to help someone commit suicide. Secondly, they talk about euthanasia being a way for the government to save money. Physicians have been allowed cash bonuses if they do not provide care for patients in the United States. This means that doctors could influence patients to go through with the 'treatment' only because they get more money from it. Third point is that at one point, if we legalize euthanasia, they would be mesmerized by the idea of death and will be influenced by the outside world. The fourth and last point is that euthanasia is a rejection of the importance and value of human life. With euthanasia, no one's life is being saved. We are just taking people's lives away.
Mason Brenhouse

What's Wrong with Taxation? - Tibor R. Machan - Mises Daily - 2 views

  • Liberty is incompatible with taxation. This despite that famous saying by Oliver Wendell Holmes that "Taxation is the price we pay for civilization." In fact, taxation is a most uncivilized way of obtaining funds, given that it boils down to nothing less than extortion.
  • Not a lot of taxation, mind you, because it seemed pretty clear to the Founders that taxation is in fact extortion. But they didn't see some other, legitimate, morally acceptable way of collecting the funds needed to pay government for its service of securing our rights. Yet, they might have.
  • The first step is to acknowledge, unapologetically, that the institution of taxation is not a civilized but a barbaric method to fund anything, because it amounts to nothing less than outright extortion, a gross violation of human liberty.
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    Interesting, this article suggests that both taxation and liberty are incompatible. Therefore by association, not only does being taxed go against everyone's own liberty but it simply cannot function in a society that is based upon liberty. In fact taxation is essentially compared to extortion. It goes on to explain how people go to work in order to earn some money in order to live their lives. However, when the pay checks come in they have only received a fraction of what they were promised. Eventually it concludes by saying that taxation is in no way civilized but simply just barbaric. 
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    Look at who these people are. Go to their home tab. This is the Austrian school of economics. Interesting.
Daryl Bambic

Komar and Melamid: The Artists and the Project - 0 views

  • In an age where opinion polls and market research invade almost every aspect of our "democratic/consumer" society (with the notable exception of art), Komar and Melamid's project poses relevant questions that an art-interested public, and society in general often fail to ask: What would art look like if it were to please the greatest number of people? Or conversely: What kind of culture is produced by a society that lives and governs itself by opinion polls?
  • discover what a true "people's art"
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