Income inequality and Ireland

I sympathize with people who say the rich should pay more in taxes. A country needs money to operate, that money has to come from somewhere, and it makes sense for those who are the most fortunate to kick in a little extra. How much extra is always a matter of debate, but I think most people agree that some form of progressive income tax is appropriate, and we are all frustrated when we hear that some big corporation is paying little or no tax.

A lot of people believe the U.S. doesn’t impose enough tax on the wealthy, and with the changes coming in our national politics, this will be one the agenda again.

I’m not an expert on taxation, but it seems to me that a major problem with this idea is that it’s often easy for the rich to move. Countries and states and cities compete to attract new businesses so they can get the tax revenue, and one of the ways they do this is to lower taxes — because a lower portion of a big number is often better than a higher portion of a small number. If California decides the rich aren’t paying enough and raises the tax rate, people (and companies) will move to more tax-friendly states. And if the United States raises its taxes, people (and companies) will move to more tax-friendly countries.

Do the people who want to raise taxes believe they can force the rich to stay where they are?

What is the answer to all the people who think there was fraud in this election?

This article makes a good point: Ignoring And Ridiculing Election Fraud Concerns Will Not Make Them Go Away

Whether or not you agree there was massive electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election does not really matter at this point. Every American should be deeply concerned if nearly half of all voters are convinced that large-scale fraud handed the election to the Biden-Harris ticket.

Some are acting as if the right response is simply to call these people ignorant rubes.

That’s a pretty common tactic these days, on all sides. For example, many conservatives think the left has been deceiving people about allegedly racist attacks by police. I don’t suspect conservatives will make much progress simply by saying it’s fake news. They need to address the concerns in a way that will persuade the people who believe the police are racist.

It’s an important issue. We can’t have a civil society when a large portion of the population believes the police are killing people because of their skin color. If they are, we need to take tremendous measures to fix that. But if they’re not, we need to take tremendous efforts to correct that misunderstanding.

The same is true of election integrity. We can’t have elections where almost 50 percent of the population believes there’s systemic bias. We need to find out the truth, and we need to communicate that.

Congressional hearings? A blue-ribbon panel? An open debate on national TV?

What’s the path forward?

How far should we take the fight against nature?

According to Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate, some people believe in a thing called human nature, and some people don’t. Very broadly speaking, the left doesn’t like human nature while the right does. And of those who do believe in human nature, there are gradations in how much you believe it can be changed — or at least resisted.

For example, someone might believe it’s human nature for men to want a variety of sexual partners, but still believe it’s in everyone’s best interests for men to be taught and expected to resist that urge and be faithful to one woman.

A few months ago I heard a podcast interview of a man who has an “open relationship” with his wife, and how he constantly has to fight between his “rational” decisions and his natural jealousies.

Most of us fight this sort of thing on a regular basis with our diets. Nature programs us to load up on something sweet when we have the chance, but we know that’s not good for us in the modern world, where sweet stuff is far from rare.

In other words, “human nature” is no excuse for anything. We’re constantly fighting it in one way or another, but we don’t have any clear rules on when we should fight it and when we should accept it as either good or inevitable.

Those contrasts came to mind as, in close succession, I heard Sherlock Holmes say “It is part of the settled order of Nature that such a girl [i.e., a very attractive one] should have followers” (The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist) and I read that people are offended that a woman voted most beautiful in the world is dating an older billionaire.

The article is chock full of the “we should rise above this” sort of attitude. I find the article absurd. Of course a beautiful woman is going to be dating a rich, older man. She’d be an idiot not to, and I find nothing “problematic” about any of it.

Still, I have to agree that there are situations where the greater good is served by resisting nature rather than following it. Maybe all the beautiful women in the world should be encouraged to marry poor, ugly men, just to make the world fair.