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“Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as investors continue to contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment or lose faith in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.”
So, to be clear, you think Ponzi schemes would work if there were a continuous flow of new investors, like if new people could be coerced into joining? You’re objectively wrong, but I would still like to make sure this is what you’re saying. The mathematical proofs for why ponzi schemes have to fail are readily available and understandable to most halfway educated individuals.“The key here is the fraud.”
So, if I start a Ponzi scheme and make it clear that it’s a Ponzi scheme and that there is no underlying asset, that would be okay? Because that’s exactly what Social Security does.“It is definitely not how a Jew should talk.”
No, according to the posters here, apparently a Jew’s tongue should always be so firmly pressed against the bottom of the government’s boot that he should not be able to speak.You have provided no evidence that SS is not structured as a Ponzi scheme. You have continuously asserted that the only reason anyone would question government is if they are “misleading.” You do all this while shamelessly pretending to be a proponent of small government elsewhere. Either just man up and go full on authoritarian or not. Your nonsensical incoherent mix of contradictory ideas is embarrassing to read.
“dina dMalchusa does not mean”
Give me a proof that it means you have to follow the laws of another country in which you don’t even live.“is this your own idea, and if not, where did you read this?”
It’s something that gets tossed around every time people criticize Social Security. It’s also just the observable reality. I’ll just echo what Dr. Pepper just said, can you really explain how a Ponzi scheme works, how Social Security works, and contrast the two? I’m failing to see the difference between “future investors (or suckers as you said)” and “future generations.” Even if you can morally differentiate (based on the axiom that everyone on the CR seems to hold by that everything the government does is morally just even when it would be wrong for a private citizen to do it), how can you mathematically differentiate?“I am also surprised how people who argue for tax evasion are not bringing any halachik authorities”
An academic point, but none of you have brought sources either. He brought the sevara of “dina malchusa dina,” and you brought Reb Moshe as holding that the US is good to the Jews. In any case, I don’t think there’s any evidence that this concept of “the halachah wants us to shill for the goyish government” ever existed until very recently, and I think your point about coming from Tzarist Russia tells us why. That generation genuinely thought that American politicians basically had a chezkas kashrus, that government organizations were held to a greater degree of accountability than private ones, that the democratic system essentially works and therefore working against voters’ interests would be political suicide, etc. On today’s standards, all of these ideas are almost universally dismissed as nonsense.Dr. Pepper:
“the US doesn’t own its citizens.”
Then why do people need to renounce their citizenship to stop working a percentage of their labor for free? Why would it be “theft,” as you called it, for people not to pay taxes unless you believe that the country intrinsically owns you or at least owns your labor?“911- let me put you on hold while I check if you paid your fire fighting taxes…”
Do you also support socialized healthcare, then? Or, is it somehow different when a 911 call is made for a medical emergency vs. a fire?“Re the person arguing about whether there’s a benefit to being American, you’ve got to be crazy if you think there is no benefit to being American.”
Such person does not exist. Copy and paste one quote anywhere from this thread in which anyone said that.“Whether you need to pay taxes in North Korea or Somalia”
This is a nonsense argument that “patriots” make that nobody should ever be allowed to critique or make suggestions for improvement for the US because it’s still better than alternatives. I get the “love it or leave it” concept for fresh immigrants, because it is essentially questioning why someone would come here in the first place if they’re just going to hate it and complain about everything, but for tenured American citizens, it’s absurd to imply we can’t criticize anything. Nobody is claiming the US isn’t the best option currently in existence, but that still doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.Forsh: I believe they now built a ganzer Brooklyn eruv, which would be of equal controversy to the Manhattan eruv.
To answer your question, if you’re litvish, I guess you’ll have to bring your own eruv with you. Let us know when you set it up so that we can argue about it on the CR.
“But like my BT in McDonalds example, what we’re “choshesh” for in this discussion is the in situ temptations that form the battleground for those actively fighting their yetzer hara, not those who have already surrendered to it.”
Someone who seeks out a public wifi, downloads stuff, then looks at it later has already surrendered to his yetzer hara. He has nobody to blame but himself at that point, not his phone. That’s way too many steps to still blame the phone.
“Are you suggesting a charity system to substitute for any tax? ”
Why would it be charity? It’s not charity when I give Walmart money for goods and services. Private businesses turn out profit without having the ability to coerce people at gunpoint to give them money like the government does. Meanwhile, the government plunges itself into debt despite this unfair advantage. If you’re specifically talking about things like USAID that don’t provide any service to the taxpayer, then yes I absolutely think those should be replaced by individual choice on where to give charity and I can’t even fathom how anyone could think otherwise.“I can assure you that every revenue source has someone objecting to it. ”
OK, so? Plenty of people would object to any given private company, but they don’t all go out of business without the forced patronage of the entire country. What’s your point? If there’s a market for the good/service, it will continue to be funded. If not, it never should have existed in the first place.“So, we all can participate in a democracy and influence the policy, but can we simply cheat to avoid paying?”
I would be more than happy to give up participating in your sham democracy to be able to stop paying taxes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if most taxpayers would agree. The sway that consumers have on private companies through the free market is a lot stronger than the alleged power of your vote.“SS does not have to be a ponzi scheme – one generation pays, another receives.”
This is the definition of a ponzi scheme; the later investors pay, the earlier ones receive. Are you trolling?“only paid by sucking more suckers in.”
I.e. the future generations you’re referring to. You’re making it sound like you think ponzi schemes would work as long as nobody ever wised up. This is not true. The number of required “suckers” will inherently approach infinity. This isn’t a theory, by the way; it is well known and documented why ponzi schemes have to fail. Do you want me to explain it more, or can you just look it up?“B’H people live longer”
No, this has always been a red herring. Pyramid schemes mathematically don’t work. It wouldn’t matter if people always died 1 year after starting collecting SS.“Sorry, you can’t compare the ability to buy a smartphone to having one and simply needing to connect with a wifi network.”
I didn’t, did I? I’m talking within people that already have smartphones. Or, alternatively, having a flip phone without a data plan if you’re worried about it technically having browser access. If your choshesh for people going to a public restaurant, connecting their flip phone to the wifi, and using it to look at inappropriate material in public, then you you’re living in the dark if you don’t think the same people wouldn’t get past the filters or go buy a new phone. With true smart phones, I do hear, since they’re basically mini-tablets and are more naturally connected to internet all the time.“Novardok was into dressing poorly, Slabodka was into respectful dress, although not uniform, I believe. Similarly/later, Lublin provided respectful room & board.”
It could be that you’re historically correct, but we were really talking about how it pertains to contemporary yeshivos. Chofetz Chaim claims to be the spiritual successor to Slabodka, and they’re very much into going against the grain of what’s considered respectable dress in yeshivish circles. It’s not limited to cultural norms like that. From my understanding, they even go as far as to condone or encourage meikelus on halachic issues (eg. Chalov Yisroel, R”T tzeis, men’s mikvas).If my understanding is not based on incorrect information, then like I said earlier, the colored shirts should be the least controversial thing. I guess they would say that it being the issue people bring up so often proves their point in some capacity.
What’s with all the bootlickers/Karens in the CR lately?
“Just because it has two wheels instead of 4 doesn’t mean it’s any less dangerous.”
I really hope this is trolling, and if it is, I’m sincerely jealous I didn’t think of anything this brilliant.“Why hide the place? If a school does not supervise their students from participating in dangerous activities, they should be shamed for the aveiros”
You want her to out people on the internet for doing something completely normal and harmless because a few screeching freaks need something to whine about?Oh, wow I just saw your other comment and realized you successfully trolled me. Bravo! That was some vintage CR craftsmanship.
anon:
“You’re missing the point…”
No, that was absolutely not her point. Stop steel manning crazy people’s arguments.“This is something that will be paid back with reasonable assurance.”
No, THIS is silly. If you only got back exactly what you paid in, it wouldn’t be enough for anyone to live on rendering SS useless. It depends on a constant influx of new “investors” (taxpayers). The problem with a pyramid scheme model isn’t that it’s immoral or fraudulent. The problem is that it is mathematically impossible for them to work. If they worked, every financial institution would be doing this, and it would be a great way for private retirement funds to operate. The number of new investors needed to sustain it goes up exponentially, so after a few iterations, you start needing an insane amount of new buy in. I doubt the numbers are readily available, but I would assume we currently need more people than are currently residing in the US (maybe the world) to be paying into SS to actually pay for it. Since that isn’t happening, they’ll just pay for it with debt. At that point, why not just pay for all of it with debt and save the taxpayer some money?“Is each of us allowed to decide what is “fair” and what is “devastating” and not pay extra?”
We should be. That’s his point. You’ve been trained to think it’s crazy, but it’s not.Dr. Pepper:
If I take your money at gun point, I’m obviously stealing. If I hold you at gun point and force you to buy an item you don’t actually want for a price you don’t agree upon, you would also probably call that stealing. Yet, somehow when the government does exactly that, not only is it not stealing in your eyes, it would be stealing for the victim for not pay for the unwanted item.The argument that the government effectively owns us and therefore has the right to anything we earn is effectively comparable to slavery. Meaning, they could take 100% of our income and make us work for free, and that would be their right because they own us. They graciously allow us to keep 50-80% of our earnings because they are benevolent masters apparently. At what percentage do you have a problem with this, or do you genuinely hold that they have the right to take everything? I get the taxation as a necessary evil case, but I absolutely do not understand how anyone can argue that tax collectors are on the moral high ground and that it would be stealing not to be extorted by them. Any other time in history, you probably would have seen it this way. People have become a little too comfortable in America.
“People are desperate to live in the US so hopefully everyone will admit there is a benefit to being American.”
People from North Korea are desperate to live in China. People in Somalia are desperate to live in Iran. It’s all relative, and I would contend you don’t really believe your own argument. If someone were desperate to leave his country (eg. the folks you mention who want to come to the US), does that mean they should not pay taxes to their country since they don’t see the benefit of it?I would say people SHOULD only have to pay taxes on the programs where they actually see real benefit. I believe your argument, but you don’t.
“I was thinking recently about Slabodka having respectful clothing for their poor students to bolster their self esteem”
On the contrary, they purposely wear less respectable clothing to diminish their self-esteem and avoid gaavah or “complacency” as the other poster put it. My point was that if they’ve created a sub-culture in which colored shirts are actually MORE respectable than white shirts (as it is all subjective afterall), then they’ve gone full circle and defeated the original purpose.“It’s human nature”
It’s human nature to not filter a touchscreen phone, but it is within human nature to filter a flip phone? I don’t buy this one. It’s human nature to do assur things on the internet. The whole point of filtering is to not leave things up to human nature.“You may be an exception here”
I’m for sure the exception here. I’m young enough to be skilled at numpad texting and old enough to be terrible with touch screens. That’s a very narrow age bracket.“To limit its usage is like digging uphill.”
This is always true of filtering. We aren’t filtering to optimize the capabilities of the phone, quite the opposite. Your contention seems to be that it’s illogical to buy a state of the art smart phone and filter the daylights out of it rather than just buying a slightly smart flip phone and accomplishing the same thing with only a little filtering, but unless you’re paying for the effort to filter it then this is a fallacy. I’m saying just buy the absolute cheapest phone on the market and filter it down to only being able to talk and text. In fact, I would contend that this was always the minhag and it just happened to be that flip phones were traditionally the cheapest. I think paying more for a flip phone that you’ll have to filter anyway instead of just filtering a touch screen down to talk and text for less money would be a minhag shtus. It does seem you’ve done the research and found that buying/filtering flip phones is still cheaper today, so that’s still an academic point.“Walk into a Starbucks and connect to their network, and you have a fully functional smartphone in your hands.”
So then don’t connect to their network? I’m sorry, but at some point there has to be a level of personal responsibility. You could also just say “get rid of the filter and you have a fully functional smartphone in your hands.” Fully functional smart phones will always be available, it’s just about putting more steps in the way of accessing it.“Even the “wasted” money is in American hands and gives jobs and money to people.”
If you want to give free charity money to useless federal employees, go ahead, but don’t coerce me into doing so through taxes.“it’s still a job and contributes to the economy.”
No it doesn’t. It would be no different than just giving them a really big welfare check.“Musk currently has the ability to put over a million people out of jobs with no backup or recourse.”
It’s currently extremely hard to lay off federal employees, unfortunately. That’s why they’re using buyouts. If they fired them, the wrongful termination liability would end up costing more than letting them keep their useless jobs forever. These people are sitting pretty and do not deserve any sympathy. They have been stealing our money for years, and now get a handsome severance package.“Do you seriously not have a problem with the amount of power that Elon Musk currently wields”
If it were power he weilded against the people, then yeah. If his power is limited to eliminating the federal government, then I wouldn’t care if Hitler’s zombie was entrusted with that power. Shrinking the government is a good thing, and I couldn’t care less who does it.“Life isnt all or nothing, black and white”
Yeah, but this issue is. If you advocate for allowing illegal immigration, then you support open boarders. Allowing and not punishing are the same thing.“Would you agree to staying with a fee”
No, because if the fee is small enough that it’s worth it for them to just pay, then it’s not a deterrent. That would effectively just mean you can skip the whole immigration process and buy your way in, or maybe get in for free if you don’t get caught. If the fee was so high that it counteracted the fiscal advantages of living in the US and then some (eg. a 500K fee), then yeah fine, otherwise this would be completely pointless.This isn’t a moral question (i.e. how much punishment to they deserve). Deportation isn’t a punishment, it’s simply correcting the mistake. As far as feeling sympathy for the illegals, they knew what they were getting into. Also, half of them are otherwise criminals anyway so who cares.
“They definitely don’t function as well or easily, making use of them for anything other than basic calling and texting cumbersome and unappealing.”
I personally would get accomplish a lot more bittul Torah on a smart flip phone than I would on a touch screen since I’m totally hapless with touch screens. For the general case, I guess the question now is: is the problem that it’s possible to do these bad things with your phone, or is the problem that it’s EASY to do them. If the former, then the OP is right that it makes no difference. You seem to be arguing for the latter.“Most people with smartphones, even filtered, use them for much more than just calling and texting. That’s the reality.”
This is true, but there’s really no reason that it needs to be true. Once we reach the point where flip phones cost more (if we haven’t already), wouldn’t it just make more sense to just use a smart phone base and filter down to northing outside of calling and texting? Also, whatever happened to just not having a data plan? Is that not a thing anymore?“There are still flip phones, which although do need filtering, aren’t smartphones.”
If they were true flip phones, they wouldn’t need filtering. If they access the web, then they’re on the level on old school smart phones like Blackberries, which would have been around the time when the frum world initially started paying attention. Just because they’re relatively less smart than the smartest phones of today shouldn’t matter from a Torah-perspective.“I think Lav Davka answered your question very well.”
He/she gave a good answer for not having smart phones, but that wasn’t the question. The question was why are smart flip phones considered holier than regular touch-screen smart phones? Remember, the OP was the first one to bring up the CAT phone. Your familiarity with it shows that you’ve also probably come across people in the frum world who use it.Fakenews:
The overton window refers to the most “middle ground” spectrum of views that are tolerated by the masses. I don’t see how it applies here. The OP is wondering what the nafka mina is between a regular smart phone and a flip phone that can do basically all the same stuff. Nothing he said suggested he sees his upbringing as the middle ground; it could be that he thinks it was extremely machmir, but it should still make cohesive sense, which it seems it does not.“but the basic idea is it causes complacency among other reasons”
The derech goes back to Slobodka to purposely take meikel positions on certain things in order to avoid bal gaavah, doesn’t it? I heard they b’shittah avoid having mikvas on their yeshiva grounds for this reason. The colored shirts should probably be the least controversial example, yet instead it’s the one people talk about the most.To be fair, however, if you’re now going full 180 and saying white shirts negatively affect people, therefore there’s a maalah in colored shirts, then your colored shirt is actually causing you to have more gaavah than a white one would and serving the opposite of its purpose.
As someone who has always been a flip-phone user and a major advocate of davka using flip phones and being anti-smart phones, it pains me to say this: it’s just purely an arbitrary social norm at this point.
If true flip phones were still commercially available then this wouldn’t be the case. There would be real arguments for flip phones, which are still the arguments people are making despite being outdated. The only currently available flip phones are smart phones. Yes, you can have stuff done to them by frum organizations to dumb them down, but you can also do that with touch-screen phones.
The Cat phone is a great example because not only is it a smart phone, but it’s a straight up touchscreen! It just has a numpad hanging off of it for no reason.
Unfortunately, I would guess that the future will not see a revolution of true flip phones coming back. More likely, people will either conclude that it’s pointless to have a flip phone if it’s a smart phone anyway and just get regular smart phones, or people will double down harder on the flip-phone-cultural-status thing you’ve observed. I genuinely have no idea what I’ll do when my current flip phone kicks the bucket. I hate pointless social norms, but I really really hate touchscreens…
“but that’s like arresting people for speeding or holding a phone while driving because they broke a law”
How? Relocating them to where they came from is literally just undoing the crime. They should feel lucky he isn’t taking actual punitive measures. The idea that they should be allowed to stay here definitively means you believe in open boarders. There’s no nafka mina between someone who says “there should be boarders and laws, but nothing should happen when someone breaks them” and someone who believes in open boarders aside from the fact that open-boarder proponents actually have to spine to say what they actually think unlike the spineless phony-conservatives and “moderates” making the first argument.“handing the Department of Treasury over to that African American immigrant running DOGE.”
Was this supposed to be some kind of ironic statement accusing Trumpists of being racist? Because it didn’t work. It just made you sound racist.“If you don’t think it’s a problem for the president to threaten military force to break multiple international treaties and take sovereign land because it has good resources”
This never happened. Nobody ever suggested militaristically invading Greenland. I’m against Trump’s statements about Greenland as well, but it’s stupid, fake-news comments like this that cause his supporters to double-down and convince themselves to believe in this nonsense.“it was only McKinley on a few official papers and stuff.”
This is nonsense, and unless you’re younger than 25 I don’t even see how you think you would get away with making this false assertion. Every map of the US, geography book, history book, trivia card asking about the tallest mountain, etc. had it as Mt. McKinley. That was its official name, more importantly that IS what people called it; I remember. The fact that some people wanted to be weird and call it by its Eskimo name is irrelevant.As the resident CR anti-government extremist seeing a thread called “Unfair tax evasion”
Oh boy, here we go again…
AAQ
“I am not sure why you don’t agree with this,”
Because if I’m going to have a state that can coerce me into giving it money and being subjected to its will, then I want it to be as limited as possible. States are free to “compete” by giving us even more rights that what the Constitution guarantees, but I see no advantage to the consumer in them being able to give less.“14th amendment came later after civil war. Constitutional structure existed from the beginning. Ikar v tofel.”
That’s a cute way of justifying only using the parts of the Constitution that serve your shittah, but it’s a nonsensical distinction. You now have to also ignore the Constitution’s ability to be amended so that you can justify ignoring all amendments, but to do so would ignore part of what you call the “ikar.”Ubiq:
“No but it is an inevitable absolute certain outcome of your approach”
Again, individualism isn’t anti-rule and has nothing to do with government. It’s a philosophical school associated with people like Ralph Waldo Emmerson. It has no shaychus to anything you’re saying.“If there is no rule against drunk driving people will drive drunk and hurt other people”
I actually think this is a horrible example for your own argument. If someone is willing to take the risk of killing himself and/or other people, it isn’t a traffic ticket that’s going to stop him. I agree there should be rules against drunk driving (not sure why you keep saying I say otherwise), but they’re punitive, not preventative.“And I say even on the federal level”
There are still a couple of differences. In the free market, you not only can chose to take your business elsewhere, but you can chose to take it nowhere and just not pay for that service. The other difference is that business go bankrupt when nobody likes their product. States just double down and coerce even harder when nobody likes their actions. Say, for example, NASA was a private company and those who think it’s for the “greater good” would chose to pay for it just like they pay for it with taxes now. Those who don’t see the benefit, would not pay. Everybody wins, in theory. In reality, NASA would have to justify its existence enough for people to give money without coercion and would probably fail and go bankrupt. The nay sayers wouldn’t care, and the supporters would go home sad that they weren’t able to force all the unenlightened simpletons into giving up money they earned to pay for something they will never care about. This reality is even better than everyone winning, because the bad guys lose.“actually the judge took into account the hitmen during sentencing”
If true, then I hope he takes civil/legal action against the judge. He/she doesn’t get to play jury.“Alaska, where Mt. McKinley is, has called it Denali for decades.”
You can keep saying it, and I’ll keep doubling down. This is a liberal media narrative. There is no way you’re going to get me to believe that they didn’t call it Mt. McKinley when that was how it was referred to in every book and map in existence. Even were this hypothetically true, it wouldn’t change the fact that the entire rest of the country knew it exclusively as Mt. McKinley, and it doesn’t change what Obama’s obvious motives were.“Though HOA’s you are ok with . Which is throwing me off a little”
I still don’t understand the kasheh. Were you actually asking if I would support collectivist-inspired HOA rules? Of course I wouldn’t. Was the question on individualism or on anarchism/minarchism? They aren’t intrinsically related at all.“What do you mean by “people agree””
Lol it was your hypothetical! What did YOU mean by people agree? I thought you meant everyone in this theoretical pact agreed to stop listening to music, not just a majority.“Why isnt a state or a larger country (like you I agree this distinction today is arbitrary) simply a large HOA?”
This is the main argument of the so-called “anarcho-communist” Noam Chomsky types, that being subjugated by private companies is no better than being subjugated by the government. I don’t agree with them, because in a free market you can take your business elsewhere (at least more freely than you can take your citizenship elsewhere). The larger country or state is worse because it’s inherently a monopoly and even worse a monopoly that can force people to give it money.“implying you are ok with the group trumping an individual.”
Again, morally/philosophically I don’t think an individual should get in trouble (whether by a state or an HOA) for doing something that does not affect anyone else, so I would oppose the HOA rule you had in your scenario. To clarify as best as I can, if you were asking:
-As an individualist, would I support HOA rules that are collectivist in nature simply because an HOA is private not public? No, individualism doesn’t have anything to do with government or lack-thereof.
-Are anarchists ok with HOA rules? Depends on which school of anarchism. That one is probably the far more interesting question, but I’m not really the person to ask.“No IVe considered it, I’ll consider it again. Do I want drunk drivers ? ”
You’re conflating individualism with anarchism (and also misunderstanding anarchism a bit). This is my fault for murkying that up. Individualism is a very mainstream approach that has nothing to do with politics. If you’re now admitted to making decisions based on your own self-interests rather than for the good of the motherland/humanity/collective/whatever, then you’re theoretically an individualist, but I don’t really buy it. Your stances show that you do want to tell people who to live their lives even when it has no effect on you whatsoever. Allowing people to hurt other people is not an individualist ideal, nor have I ever claimed it was.AAQ
“look up commerce clause that leaves interstate commerce to congress and not states”
How would you maintain this while also having the states not be chayev in the Constitution? If a state wanted to make their own currency, and refuse to do business with any other state, what would stop them? And, what makes the commerce clause a “fundamental of the Constitution” while the 14th amendment is just something you think should be scrapped? How can you use a constitutional argument from authority when your whole stance is predicated on ignoring the constitution?“So if a drug dealer is convicted for five years for a single trade”
Where on earth did you get this? Nobody gets 5 years for one drug deal. Maybe in China…“the first mention of Silk Road on the internet were posts he made on drug forums”
Yes, drugs were always one of the purposes of the Silk Road, which I mentioned earlier.“nclm- do you actually think your comparisons are valid. that was a bunch of strawmen”
I only made the one about people using my yard to sell drugs. How is comparing an online platform to physical a “stawman?” The sane thing to legislate would be to always compare online crimes to a comparable physical one so that you have precedent. Your preference seems to be that we should just go l’chumra in the absence of direct precedent and give everyone life (or death) sentences for online crime because why not.“you didnt even try to address the five hitmen he hired”
Why should I? He wasn’t found guilty of it (or even tried for it I think), the agent who made the accusation WAS found guilty of corruption/impropriety, the alleged targets think it’s a ridiculous accusation and know that he didn’t do it. I don’t feel the need to address crazy conspiracy theories.“no one in Alaska has called it “McKinley” for decades,”
This is nonsense. All history/geography books, maps, globes, atlases, etc. had it as Mt. McKinley. Alaska is not some alternate universe that doesn’t use the same information as the continental US. Changing its name was no different that changing a sports team’s name from Indians to Guardians. Virtue signaling nonsense based on manufactured outrage.“But that doesn’t change the fact that what these people did was 100% wrong and they all knew it.”
Why did they know that? The country has sent very strong messages that this type of behavior is totally fine. How were they meant to know that it’s only okay when leftists do it? And, by the way, leftist rioters do a heck of a lot more damage than the January 6 crowd did.“the only question is if their prison sentences should have been a little shorter.”
A little? They basically had an impromptu Renaissance fair while trespassing. It should not have even been a felony.“I’m curious if this is a strictly government thing, or individuals always trump groups”
The simplest answer is that individuals trump groups, but I sort of reject the whole idea of “groups.” Even a hardcore collectivist such as yourself is inherently acting on your own self-interests. You’ve just convinced yourself of your own benevolence and selflessness. Your insistence on using the state to coerce people to fit your ideals has everything to do with wanting people to conform to be like you and nothing to do with caring about anyone. If you cared about people, you would let them live their best lives by their own free will. This trait is shared by seemingly all doctors, so I find it impossible to believe that you’re “the odd one out” in the people you associate with. Most doctors basically wish America was North Korea.“Is this wrong in your view, since the individual is losing his rights? Or no, the individual chose to join the group and that includes giving up his right to music”
The question is a false dichotomy. If he has the choice to leave and go listen to music, then he isn’t losing his right (unless I’m misunderstanding the scenario). He’s not being coerced if he’s agreeing to live by a certain set of rules. We agree to abide by the halacha without being coerced; why would that be a problem?“Is it immoral to force him to abide by it?”
Yes, but that isn’t the scenario you created. You said people came together willingly and formed a pack to live by these rules. Anyone can just leave the pack at any time. Where’s the coercion there?“I bought or inherited one of these homes, am I bound by the rules? I never agreed to them”
You would look into the HOA rules before buying a home, right? By buying it, you are agreeing to the rules.“Is any of the above different if I play music quietly on earphones (hard to imagine how that affects anyone else. even Icant come up with an argument) vs out loud on speakers on my porch vs at 2 AM”
Depends on how the rules work in your hypothetical universe. Are you asking me in real life if I think there’s a difference between listening quietly and out loud? Yes, obviously, and so do you. If this imaginary HOA built into the contract that they can evict or fine people even for headphones, then I guess it wouldn’t make a difference in that universe.What’s the ikker here? Are you asking if I would agree with the music ban that affects nobody else? No, would you? Are you asking if the general idea of HOA rules would exist in an anarchist society? Yes, of course, they would probably be way more prevalent than they are today, but it’s not coercion if people agree to it.
“I get that in your view it is (if not worse) but the distinction is not arbitrary.”
You gave no reasons as to why it’s not arbitrary. You just repeated several times that it’s not even though I think it is. You agree in principle that someone should not be coerced into paying for a product they don’t want… but, somehow it’s okay when the government does exactly that, ah but only in cases where you personally approve it, so not the Ford example. The only reason the philosophical logic makes sense to you is because you were raised with it and have never considered anything else. If you are still going to steadfastly refuse to consider the possibility that this axiom of government’s right to coerce is false, then why are you still talking to me?“I agree that the police should have been tougher on them, in general.”
Why?“Especially using any contemporary standard for police in the US to justifiably shoot to kill a person.”
Both liberals and conservatives are usually inconsistent about this. Liberals are usually the ones who actually care about police brutality, but suddenly when the target is conservative, they wish they had slaughtered more of them as comrade mdd implied (almost flat out said it). Conservatives, on the other hand, almost always occupy the position that “cops are always right…” Until the person getting brutalized was one of their own. I had hoped that this would make conservatives rethink their approach to police brutality, but unfortunately they have been all too content with being hypocritical.“dpr did it because he believed anything should be able to be bought and sold including drugs and fake ids”
There were actually rules on the Silk Road, but yes, victimless crimes like someone doing drugs in the comfort of his own home they condoned. Why not? How does it effect you personally so much that you feel the need to lock him up? If you’re worried about overdoses, let them die of overdoses. Let the problem regulate itself.“This is not less than in previous wars.”
It objectively is less. They gained a country from the first war and gained land in the other two wars. They gained nothing from this, and Hamas did. Sure looks a lot like defeat.The mere fact that Hamas considers this a victory entails that they will be emboldened to do these things a lot more going forward. Deterring future attacks should have been the primary goal, and it seems like they did the opposite.
What is really telling is that Hamas’ leftist advocates abroad are even calling it a victory, because unlike Hamas itself, these are people that never want to paint the Palestinians as victors and always want to paint them as victims. To get them to change their tune implies it was a decisive Palestinian victory.
“NCLM- he facilitated those deaths”
So did the employers of the people who bought the drugs and used the money from their paychecks. What’s your point?“would you say that someone who aided a suicide should go to jail?”
No. I would not say that the owner of a gun store should go to jail every time a customer uses one of the guns to shoot himself.“the same way any other drug dealer does”
Then let him have the same sentence as “any other drug dealer,” which again is not multiple life sentences. If the best you can come up with is to call him a drug dealer, then even within your shittah he should be pardoned. He already served 3 times the time of the drug dealers from his platform. Unless you think all non-violent drug dealers should be given life, but that is probably a much crazier stance than you think it is.“Rename a mountain and free a drug dealer?”
I’m not sure why you’re ignoring all the other things he did, but if I’m understanding correctly, you’re disappointed he didn’t do even more? You were wishing he would be more authoritarian, not less? As for those two particular issues, they were niche issues that were very big deals to a lot of people, myself included. Freeing Ross Ulbicht was one of the top issues if not THE top issue for people on the libertarian/anarchist spectrum (it was basically the slogan of the libertarian party). You can think all those people are dumb all you want, but they still have votes. As for Mt. McKinley, it’s totally in line with Trump’s whole shtick. Obama renamed it for political correctness, virtue-signaling reasons. That’s exactly the kind of thing Trump claims to want to roll back.“stupidity and ignorance is no excuse.”
It is when the basis of your argument is intent. I can see trespassing resulting in jail time, but not this much. The extent of it was unambiguously politically motivated. I genuinely don’t believe anyone truly thinks it was an attempt to violently overthrow the government. Don’t you think they would have brought some guns or bombs if they were going to do that rather than running around in cosplay holding up banners?“At its core, it wasn’t built for drug sales even though drug dealers latched onto it.”
To be fair to their side of the argument, I do think drug sales were always one of the intentions for the Silk Road. I don’t actually think that matters. If I put up a sign in my yard that said “if you deal drugs in my yard, I will not call the cops on you” I don’t think I should go to jail when people actually go ahead and do so; it’s not like I forced them to. People who hate Silk Road and people who love it have the same underlying reasoning: the potential to use the internet to circumvent government. The opponents are terrified of it for that reason. The proponents such as myself are giddy with excitement.“Again, difference between moving to another country is that states have common language, economy, interstate travel and commerce making moving between states easy.”
None of these things would be a given without something uniting the states under a common law. What would stop states from closing their boarders with other states and preventing interstate travel/commerce? What would stop states from adopting alternate currencies?“You can try to restore state rights without restoring slavery, of course.”
The rights of states to take away people’s rights? Why would we want that? And, I’m not talking about slavery; we can ignore that point. You’re effectively arguing for less limits on the government so that they can be free to put more limits on the people. The state vs. federal differentiation is arbitrary at that point. For the record, it’s no worse than the arbitrary distinction everyone makes between private and government in the favor of government (eg. a corporation paving over a community = evil, but the government eminent domain’ing over a community = progress)I’m all for states having the right to be more lenient than the federal government, but not more strict. If anything, I would prefer the states to have less rights in making new laws. I know you might just say that’s because I’m weird and generally against laws, but it’s certainly not weird to be against unconstitutional laws.
“USA will still work if Connecticut will have an official church and if Pennsylvania quakers will ban all guns.”
You don’t think states should be chayev in the Constitution? I think Avram’s questions stands, then. How is that any better than telling people they can just move to another country? If states weren’t all under the same constitution, they basically WOULD be totally different countries.I think most people see states’ rights as a means to an end of limited government. Your position seems to be that tyranny would theoretically be fine as long as it’s on a state level rather than federal. That just seems arbitrary. To be fair, this is how the country worked prior to the 14th amendment. It would be gutsy to argue that you want to return to those “good ol’ days” given the historical context of what caused them to pass that amendment.
“In negotiations, yes.”
I’m sorry, but you’re going to be hard pressed to find people that agree with this.“Are things worse or better now v. 1948 or 1967 or 1973?”
The difference is that Israel came out ahead in those wars. Traditionally, when there was a war, Israel came out ahead. When there was a peacemaking effort (some ambassador trying to win a Nobel Prize), the Palestinians would come out ahead. This is the first time in Israel’s history that Israel has not come out ahead from a war, and arguable the Palestinians have. That should be cause for concern. If Hamas gets concessions from the war, then additional concessions from the inevitable peacemaking efforts, Israel is just getting hit double what they’re used to.Yserbius: First of all, I apologize for saying your prior posts have been left-leaning. I was confusing you with another poster.
“Just cheerleading for Trump.”
I said the Gulf of Mexico renaming was stupid and confided in you that I’ve been boxed out of the conservative side altogether due to my lack of support for Trump, but ok…“If you want to be technical Mt. McKinley was referred to as Denali for longer”
The natives are free to keep using their terms, but the European/American colonists renamed everything. It’s not worth opening the can of worms of reverting everything to their Native American names.“How many people died because of the Silk Road gun and drug market?”
The widely reported number is six, but so what? If six people die from drugs they purchased in a Wal Mart parking lot, did Wal Mart commit a crime? If people chose to buy drugs and have overdoses, they have nobody to blame but themselves.“He ran a dark web drug, child exploitation”
Child exploitation was forbidden on the Silk Road. If you’re going to say people did so anyway, you could say that about anything.“How else would you describe him?”
At best, a web designer, at worst a drug dealer. The actual drug dealers that used his site only got 3-4 years. Non-violent drug dealers don’t get multiple life sentences. It’s very Trumpist of you to think that all drug dealers should be treated like serial killers.“I am a tad liberal leaning, but I hate admitting to it”
You shouldn’t. Don’t alter the way you identify yourself just because the people around you are too immature to react to it without making crazy straw man arguments that you’re a communist.“I just think that a lot of what Trump is doing falls way outside the norms of conservative politics”
I would tend to agree, but why should we get a monopoly on the definition of conservatism? If conservatism in 2025 means Trumpism, then we need to stop identifying as conservatives rather than expecting everyone else to change to fit our norms.“most sides are rational and well-informed parties and negotiations reflect this.”
Even Hamas?“If conditions changed in Israeli favor from May to January, that means the results of negotiations are more favorable to Israel in January than they were in May.”
Did either of these things happen?“They achieved a lot of successes.”
They could achieve success whenever they want militaristically, but what did it accomplish longterm other than an uptick in global antisemitism?“can you use CE?”
Ha, there’s another thread going on right now for this discussion…“instead of renaming mountains”
He actually un-renamed a mountain. Obama renamed it, and Trump undid it and put it back to the name we all grew up with. The Gulf of Mexico thing is just total shtusim, though.“and pardoning drug market kingpins.”
Are you seriously referring to Ross Ulbricht as a “drug market kingpin?” If Biden had been the one to pardon him, you would totally be on board to call his sentence an injustice. Now, the poor guy spent 12 years in jail, lost his ability to start a family, and gets to look forward to everyone hating him just because of the name of the president who happened to pardon him. Absolute insanity.“I intensely dislike how frum Conservatives have turned into Trumpists. Where people get angry if you level the slightest criticism against President Trump and start foaming at the mouth calling you “leftist” and “liberal”.”
I actually agree with this, in theory, but a lot of your posts on here have actually come across is just flat out liberal-leaning, and I don’t mean that in a combative way. Are you sure you haven’t just personally shifted politicly? I stopped identifying as a conservative as a result of these shifts, and I would recommend you think about it. How much sense does it make to identify as the “one REAL conservative in the room” while everyone else around you is doing it wrong? A lot of these democrat refugees that have recently become republicans say things like “I didn’t abandon the democratic party; they abandoned me.” Maybe consider the possibility that the same thing has happened to you in the other direction.“I do agree with his conservative leanings and I think he will be a far better president than Kamal or Biden.”
I bet if I asked you to think of 10 bad things to say about Trump and 10 to say about Biden, you would much more easily fill out the Trump list. Why are you so convinced he’s going to be better than Biden? The core criticism of Biden is that he was so senile he couldn’t even do anything. Isn’t that better than a president who has his wits about him enough to do plenty of terrible things?AAQ
“I am, frankly, for almost any regulations at state level.”
It seems like what you meant to say is that you support relegating all regulations to the state level rather than federal. The way you worded it made it sound like you would always vote yes on any new regulation proposed by a state regardless of its merit, which is why you got the strong response from Avram. I initially read your comment in that way as well and was taken aback at first, but I’m guess you’re opinions are actually largely in line with Avram’s given what you’ve since said about federal government.Ubiq
“No, with a group of people and checks and balances hope is the stupidy will “even out””
Yet you don’t actually support this. You overtly support government bodies that create rules without an act of congress. If you actually supported checks and balances, you would be fine getting rid of the EPA, for example, and letting all of its rules just be enacted through the normal channels. You would also oppose emergency powers for the president since there are almost no checks or balances to that potential stupidity.“Hasn’t been my experience. Maybe you hang out with better people”
The mere fact that you are shocked by the novelty of caring about individual liberty speaks volumes about who you surround yourself with. So, yes, I can tell you confidently that Avram and I hang out with better people. You either exist in a very liberal bubble, or modern-day conservatives just do a terrible job of articulating these concepts because they’re too busy whining about political correctness and other things that don’t matter, so you’ve never actually come across the real meat of it before.Ubiq, could you explain within your shittah why it wouldn’t just be intrinsically better for everyone if you were just the dictator of the country? Even by your own admission, the checks and balances that you claim to support only partially filter the stupidity. In a democracy, you’ll have people coming to the “wrong” or “stupid” conclusions at least some of the time. Wouldn’t the only optimized system be the avoid this completely and let you just enact your perfect system? I’m saying hypothetically, not accusing you of actually supporting totalitarianism in real life. Also, if your answer is “yes,” I’m assuming you would contend that everyone else also theoretically holds this way regarding their own ideas for ideal government, so my question is pointless and contrarian?
“Seat belt laws are an example that some would argue doesn’t affect others.”
Hate to waste time on this side point, but this really trolled me. “One could argue?!” How could you possibly argue not wearing a seatbelt DOES affect others? If you’re willing to stretch to the point of saying someone else’s decision to not wear a seatbelt actually affects you personally, then I’m sorry but you cannot in good faith keep saying that you “only support regulations when it affects others.” What the proper phrasing would be is: “I always support regulations that make people behave more like me, and will always reframe reality in such a way that I can argue it affects other people no matter how ludicrous it may seem.”“People want whats best unless theyre int eh government? seems odd, and even if true ok then lets get a new government””
We could just easily flip this argument on you: People are all selfish and stupid as individuals unless they work for the government? Only people working for the government want what’s best? Seems odd.“I did not daven in my small CT town Chabad but they had the banners and picture in the lobby, not shul”
You’re saying a small-town kiruv Chabad had yechi banners in the lobby?“why is it that in almost every single picture of rabbi shneerson that shows him wearing tfillin do the tfillin shel rosh droop well below his hair line and on to his forehead?”
Interesting observation; I had to look up pictures to confirm that it’s true. In any case, if I saw a random nobody at shachris with his tefillin like this, I would just assume he initially put them on correctly, but they drooped. All the more so, I would make this assumption for a major rabbi. It’s almost harder NOT to be dan l’chaf zchus in this situation since the most likely scenario is just that tefillin move around and come out of place every now and then.It might happen more often for those that use jumbo-tefillin like Chabad. See pictures of Dayan Yechezkel Roth, a very respected non-Chabad posek who also wore jumbo tefillin, and you’ll see that they also drooped, almost to his eyebrows. In pictures of HaRav Kanievsky, the tefillin shel rosh are also almost always positioned like the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s. HaRav Elyashiv, same thing in some pictures. Maybe your question should be why we’re all so finicky about it when clearly most gedolim are/were not.
My point is, find a better thing to pick on them for. Something that clearly happens to the best of yiddin routinely is not a Chabad-issue.
“Here is my question for you, is Elvis still alive?”
Actual question for you, and I’m genuinely curious: if you met an Elvis fan that believed he was still alive (as many actually did), would that person be a koifer or eved avodah zarah? I’m of the novel opinion that the Chabad “still-alive-niks” are less of a problem with the Torah than the “techias-hameisim-niks.” Most people seem to hold the opposite, and I don’t understand why.“Your opinion on public health isnt “invalidated” either again I’m not sure what you mean.”
It seemed like you were suggesting that I don’t have the right to specifically criticize public health when I also have criticisms for all parts of government. I don’t actually believe your argument is invalid, I was just showing you what it feels like to have the shoe on the other foot.“I didn’t call you evil, I called not caring about children getting … evil.”
Agreed, but you’re obviously implying that I don’t care about that, which I never said. I said that was a weak spot in my shitta since I don’t see how that would be mitigated without government.“Any problems with my system are ones that I’d address. A system that addresses problems is better in my book than one that ignores them.”
So, you would contend that you have the answers for literally everything? By me admitting that I don’t, I somehow lost credibility? Does that really make sense?“I dont support state bans on abortion”
OK, yet you do support regulation in other areas (which is fine). Yet, somehow if I support deregulation in one area, I have support it everywhere? I’m not going to ask you if you want to legalize random other things just because you want abortion to be legal. So, why did you keep asking me about other government functions? What if I had said “yes, I do support THAT part of government” to one of you inquiries? Would I then “lose” for being inconsistent?“not being mainstream isnt a problem. Whatever works. thats my position. yours doesn’t”
I don’t mean to devolve this into insults, but this is just flat out arrogance. Of course you believe your ideas “work” and mine “don’t,” otherwise there would be nothing to talk about. There’s no constructive point in saying that other than demonstrating that you’re very sure of yourself. And, while I’m being a degenerate anyway, your opinions actually just seem like mainstream, textbook liberalism at this point (not saying that as an insult as I couldn’t care less about the left/right split). The unwavering dedication to the moral superiority of collectivism seems a bit foreign like Canadian/European or Israeli perhaps, but I guess it’s frighteningly possible that full-blooded Americans are now ending up with that level of disregard for individual liberty.“(2) Hamas did not agree to the deal earlier.”
If this is true, and Israel had been trying to make this deal since last May, then I agree that people should not be getting upset over it. I’m not totally convinced that Israel doesn’t bear some responsibility for dragging this on longer than it needed to, but I’m honestly not that informed on this issue.Participant:
I don’t think they ever had the delusion that they would fully eliminate Hamas. I think it was more like: return the hostages, and make the Hamas problem slightly more manageable. You had perhaps unrealistically high hopes for what would come out of this war.Also, I don’t think Trump even had to twist their arm or threaten. I think Israelis just thought he would shield them from all global criticism, let them do whatever they want to Gaza, and maybe even help them do it. All he had to do was reveal that he wasn’t going to be some kind of Biblical savior to the Jews.
Did they delete some of the questions? It seemed like CS was kind of talking to nobody for most of those posts. Also, why didn’t she just say the others that UJM asked about are not ben Dovid (I actually have no idea whether or not they are)? The whole humility/Steve Witkoff drasha made no sense.
CTL: Didn’t you live in a small town with almost no frum community before moving to NY? (Not insulting it, by the way, just going by what you’ve said in the past). It seems highly unusual that a Chabad in an area like that which is functioning solely for kiruv purposes would be so openly meshichist.
“– if hamas reneges on the agreement, US will fully support resumed fighting”
Meaning they otherwise did not fully support Israel.Nobody can know for sure, but it seems an awful lot like Israel was assuming they would get unwavering support from Trump and had an incentive to prolong the war until he took office. Upon finding out that he was not the gift from Hashem that his supporters made him out to be, they agreed to a deal that they could have made back last May if not earlier.
yungermanS
I’m not sure why that comment is addressed to me specifically. You could say that as a reply to any post on any thread to render all discussion of the news superfluous. I’m guessing you didn’t like something I said, but were to lazy to respond in earnest, so you just posted an implication that it’s theologically wrong to have an opinion on current events.“I don’t know if was a מלחמת מצוה or not [due to ignorance. Although I did attempt to study the topic, and leaned toward saying that it was a מלחמת מצוה, there are too many unknowns and lack of information to get clarity. Not that my opinion changes anything, anyway, continue reading.] I also think it was [=could have been] a “justified war”.
But I’m asking לשיטתם that it’s certainly a מלחמת מצוה, it’s the “most justified war Israel has ever fought.”
Their actions speak far louder than their memes.”I’m legitimately a little confused then. It seemed like you were saying unequivocally in your first post that this was NOT a milchamas mitzvah or justified. You’re saying that it is, but others who agree that it is don’t actually mean it?
Who is saying it’s devarim bateilim and in what context? I see your OP got a bit edited, so we might have lost some context.
Hey, CS, I recently had my third coming as well. Also, apparently I’m a Chabad Meshichist nowadays according to some of the posters on here.
“I thought capitulation refers to a recitation of a capitul of tehilim.”
So, now that Israel has capitulated to Hamas, can we all stop capitulating those 2 capituls after davening?“take a longer view – there is just no possibility of a deal that will not make half of Jews and half of the world upset.”
I would be more willing to agree if this had happened ~1 year ago. If they were going to cave, why not do it a month or two after the October 7th attack? What was the point of fighting a war for over a year and getting the whole world to hate the Jews? I can understand people being mad about the deal, and other people being mad about it not coming sooner. I did not think anyone would be of the opinion that fighting a long, drawn-out war only to make the same concessions they could have made right away would be the best move. Either the war was stupid or the deal was stupid. I don’t think Netanyahu is playing “4-D chess” as Trump supporters like to say to justify anything bad that happens.“that lead to vanishing of Syrian dictator”
More specifically, it took out a westernized, suit-and-tie-wearing dictator and replaced him with a beard-having, turban-wearing psycho. When has that ever worked out for Israel or The US? Syria being in a forever civil war was best case scenario. Let them all kill each other so that we don’t have to worry about them killing us.“Oh, and was also convicted of being m’aneis a woman”
He actually wasn’t. Did you not hear about one of the major news networks having to make a big apology and pay a settlement for making this exact same claim?“but in the court of law it was determined that he forced himself upon a woman (E. Jean Carrol) and is therefore liable in the defamation suit.”
You don’t understand how the law works, or the differences between civil and criminal law. Either that or you’re purposely pretending to conflate them in hopes of tricking people who don’t know better.You could write a book on all times that Trump broke promises to his supporters or did the exact opposite of what “conservatives” are supposed to do, but instead you liberals choose to focus on nonsense and no substance.
“I don’t know if you’re serious or goading, so please answer these questions:
1) Why was this war a milchemes mitzvah?
2) Do you support the surrender deal?”So, are we to assume you didn’t support the war, but that you also don’t support ending the war?
I’m not calling it a milchamas mitzvah, but what do you think the alternative was?
“I thought I did
I oppose a regulation requiring everyone to buy Ford cars.”
That’s not a real example. That was a hypothetical I gave to make a mashal. If you have no examples of anything the government currently does that you would want to cut, then I stand by what I said. If my opinion on public health is invalidated by me being too anti-government in general, then your’s is invalidated by you being too pro-government in general.“I thought I would “get you” statement was (and is) so preposterous to me that I assumed 1) you dint know what public health was (are we differed on what was included) or 2) you hadnt thought the statment through”
Just to recap this again because I think it’s important: when you failed to “get me” because I was actually consistent, you switched to calling me evil. Obviously, I’ve considered the merits of the pro-government side since that occupies the mainstream. Have you ever truly entertained the merits of the alternative? Have you even tried? So far as I can tell, your only interest in keeping this going is to be “fascinated” by me as you would by a circus freak. That’s not really a role I’m interested in continually filling for you.
“Because you have yet to provide an example where we would be better off not being regulated.”
Most people asides from diehard bootlickers are finally coming around and admitting that the 2020 overreach was too much. I guess your motto is that we’ll have to pry your medical tyranny from your cold dead hands. Also, why do you need me to feed you an example? Most people, even liberals, have examples of government functions or regulations that they would like to see go. The fact that you don’t seem to have any might make your position as un-mainstream as mine. At the very least, you would end up with more stiras. Do you support state bans on abortion while also supporting federal funding for Planned Parenthood? Do you somehow support republican-proposed bans on trans athletes while also supporting their forced inclusion?“you DO benefit from the eradication of smallpox, you DO benefit from clean water and air.”
So, if the government did force me to buy a Ford, and I drove that Ford around and benefitted from it, then it would be wrong to me to oppose the law mandating me to get it? Once I benefit from something, I’m no longer allowed to oppose it? That makes no sense to me. Of course you could point out that I “benefit” from these things. I just think I would “benefit” more if it were turned over to the private sector, or I could just be saying the costs outweigh the benefits. My point has never been predicated on the argument that I don’t derive any benefit from the government.“Look up negative externality”
Doesn’t really seem to be a new point that hasn’t been discussed. The Love Canal example from early on here would be an example of that. It’s notable that this economic concept was invented just over a century ago to justify more taxes. It’s even referred to as the “Pigovian Tax” after the economist who mainly wrote about this.