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Title: High School tennis stars score religious liberty victory in Washington state
Source:
The Daily Sheeple
URL Source: https://www.thedailysheeple.com/hig ... y-victory-in-washington-state/
Published: Aug 31, 2019
Author: Sean Walton
Post Date: 2019-09-01 12:24:22 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 9939
Comments: 185
Siblings Joseph & Joelle Chung Two high school tennis stars scored a religious liberty victory in Washington state after being kicked off the court for their faith. The Chung siblings, Joseph, 15, and Joelle, 17, both Seventh-day Adventists, a Protestant denomination that observes Sabbath on Saturday as recorded in the Bible, sued the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) earlier this month after Joelle was disqualified from her final state tennis postseason competition because she doesn’t play on Saturdays. The Chung family, represented by Becket, a religious liberty law firm, filed a motion to withdraw their federal suit on Tuesday after WIAA agreed to add religious observance to its reasons for missing games without being penalized. Paul Chung, Joelle’s father, told “The Ingraham Angle” earlier this month that his daughter, who was undefeated on the court, valued her commitment to God more than tennis. “She was disappointed that she couldn’t help the team but she shouldn’t have to choose between religion and playing tennis,” Chung said. Joe Davis, Becket counsel and attorney for the Chungs, told Fox News Friday “it’s an important win for religious student-athletes in Washington and sets a favorable precedent nationwide.” “It’s common sense that Sabbath observers shouldn’t be excluded from any postseason sports competition at all just because of the hypothetical possibility of a schedule conflict somewhere down the line—and after the rule change, they won’t be.” WIAA denied her family’s request for a religious accommodation last season because WIAA’s previous rules stated that if an athlete could not commit to playing in every level of the tournament, barring injury or illness, they were not allowed to participate at all and would be subject to penalty. WIAA had no exception for sincerely-held religious beliefs. “For the Chung family, keeping the Sabbath holy is a serious commitment,” Becket, a religious liberty law firm, wrote in a complaint filed Aug. 6. The Chungs, both playing for William F. West High School, had conflicts with the WIAA’s state championship schedule, which included a Saturday. While Joelle had to sit out her final postseason play, Joseph, a rising sophomore, was set to have the same fate this year before the rule change. “We’re hopeful that the WIAA will take the next step and eliminate the schedule conflicts altogether, as the law requires,” Davis added. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
She was disappointed that she couldn’t help the team I can't get behind this. If she is part of a team that is counting on her, she should fulfill her obligations. Other athletes are counting on her participation. It is not fair to them. I realize she is Seven Day Adventist, but if Sabbath worship is that important she should withdraw from the team. And...she sued the WIAA costing them money to defend themselves! I worship on Sunday. If my church has athletes that need to play on Sunday then they need to go and play. Church will still be there when they finish the season. Not to mention, I work seven days a week...and God blesses me mightily.
I'm with you. I'm all for religious freedom, but when you commit to a team you commit to their rules -- which clearly stated that if an athlete could not commit to playing in every level of the tournament, barring injury or illness, they were not allowed to participate at all and would be subject to penalty. I'm sorry but it really pisses me off reading where people (once again) know the rules, break the rules, then seek redress.
How dare a Christian or a Jew actually consider the solemn obligations of their religious observance around which revolves the eternal fate of their soul to actually be a higher obligation than playing an optional team sport so they can help The Team get a chance to win some crappy plastic trophy with hastily engraved lettering in a church youth league! Now you want to prevent those faithful and committed Christians (and Jews) from suing their way to victory over the Sabbath. Well, these fine young Adventists intend to win that trophy and still go to heaven to hang out at the bosom of Abraham with Lazarus. The rest of you will be hanging out with the Rich Man in hell, begging them to send Lazarus to warn your brethren not to play team sports on Sundays.
Yay, heathen though I may be, rules are rules.
You're saying you want to disqualify athletes on the basis of religious practice. It is interesting to see a sabbatarian court case. In 2019. With two Adventist athletes. The Chung family may be on the verge of setting vital legal precedent.
I don't want to, but they knew the rules when they signed up. Let's keep in mind, SHE refused to play. It's not as though the WIAA didn't allow her to play on the basis of her religious practice.
No, the WIAA decided to schedule games to punish the participation of these athletes who the WIAA had cause to know would not participate on their sabbath. The WIAA could have scheduled around these conflicts but they chose exclusion and persecution, possibly depriving these athletes of a chance to earn a scholarship. Surprising how anti-Christian some Christians suddenly are when you pit something they actually like (high school sports) against something they don't really like, like some cruddy old 4th Commandment that stretches on through multiple verses about keeping the sabbath holy and no dodging the rule cleverly. So should this rule you like requiring participation on a sabbath apply to Christians only? Should it apply to Muslims? How about Jews? Would you allow Jews to keep the 4th commandment and not punish them for it?
Oh? They said that? Or are you just making shit up again? "So should this rule you like requiring participation on a sabbath apply to Christians only?" She wasn't "required" to do shit. She chose not to participate, knowing full well she would be disqualified. The rules were written long before she signed up. They apply to everyone. She wanted the league to make an exception just for her.
Isn't it time that we just rewrite that pesky Fourth Commandment? How about: "Forget the Sabbath. And don't you dare to keep it holy." Seems to be about what most of you think about the 4th commandment and any idea of keeping a sabbath holy (whatever that entails). I find it interesting, how people apply or refuse to even acknowledge these supposed landmark ideas about religion in the Jewish or Christian context. You know who is going to really like these two Adventists? Jewish lawyers and judges and Jewish legal scholars. For obvious reasons. I would not bet against the chances for the two Adventists to make Saturday a more respected sabbath under the law than Sunday is at present. I, of course, am cheering for the Adventists, those two lone witnesses for holiness and religious observation.
Other than these two Adventists, how many people has this rule actually affected? Hundreds of Christians? Thousands? How many people, other than these two, will a rule change affect? Any? You are turning this issue into a grand theological debate when it only affect two fanatics who interpret the fourth commandment differently than everyone else.
I see. So, in your opinion, it is only "fanatics" that would insist on observing the 4th commandment in any meaningful way instead of dismissing their religious obligations entirely so they can play some crappy bush league sport at which they have a 0.1% chance of ever getting a scholarship, let alone make a living at? I liked you better when you stuck to simple copsucking as a hobby.
I don't call a tennis tournament "meaningful". They insist on changing the rules of a crappy bush league sport which affected nobody before they showed up and will affect nobody when they leave.
Or so you hope. You fear that this might spread or you wouldn't be so vehement against these Adventist commandment fanatics. You realize, perhaps, that the two Adventists could set a legal precedent to stop all school sports on weekends while the churches continue playing their puny little league sports on Sundays? Making the churches the most unholy commandment-breakers in American society? That outcome is entirely possible. I think you know it.
If it spread and more and more players refused to play because of their devotion to their faith, then perhaps the WIAA would be open to a rule change. That's how things used to be done. "You realize, perhaps, that the two Adventists could set a legal precedent to stop all school sports on weekends … …" You say that like it's a good thing. Two people, for purely selfish reasons, changing the rules for participants from 800 statewide schools through threat of legal action just so they can play under their interpretation of the fourth commandment.
And good for them. They adhere to their religion. In much the same way that Abraham, for purely selfish reasons, adhered to his new religion. In much the same way that Jesus and the Apostle Paul, for purely selfish reasons, adhered to their religious tenets. You can apply "purely selfish" to almost any religious figure who ever made any history at all. And it is generally the case that those who do stand up for their "purely selfish reasons" are despised in their own era by a majority of the public. And this case is no different. You underestimate the power of this case. It has genuine disruptive potential. And you just can't stand the thought of it. I'd like to see it go all the way to the Supreme Court and set national precedents.
Supreme Court, I expect, will uphold freedom of sport over against enforced respect for anybody's "Sabbath".
You can't be serious. Schools are closed on Saturdays and Sundays. They have no curricular activities on either Saturday or Sunday in this country. They may assign homework but that could be done in school, riding a schoolbus, on the non-sabbath weekend day for sabbatarians and on either or both days for kids who aren't religious. The schools have no right to intrude upon students' lives and their religious practice on the weekend when the schools are officially and legally closed. The Court would rule for the Adventists decisively on the basis that the school made no attempt to accommodate their schedule of extracurricular sports toward the schedule of sabbath observance on weekends when the schools are officially closed to all students. And they are discriminating against Saturday sabbath keepers like Adventists and Jews (there are still a few Jews on the Court) but not discriminating against Sunday sabbath keepers. Nor did they discriminate against both types of sabbath keepers equally. Any good lawyer could drive a truck bomb through the school's legal defense. I think it would lead to a unanimous Court verdict in favor of the Adventists. Unfortunately, the sports leagues now have a heads-up on this issue and have seen the result of the first court case and so they may try to tiptoe around it a bit, fearing litigation and attracting some plaintiffs who will take it all the way to the Supreme Court. Maybe you just don't like treating all students equally, regardless of religion. Or maybe you think the current system of discriminating against Saturday sabbatarians works for you and others like you so you don't want any changes. I can't stop laughing at all the hijinks and weird dodges my own alma mater came up with in recent years, trying to deny that they'd run out of having enough boys to play 11-man football. In the end, it's been an utter humiliation for them. And they've discovered what the other small towns around them actually think of them. It's a comedy gold mine there in Hooterville.
Saturday sports have been a part of the American scene for a very, very long time. A Supreme Court composed entirely of Catholics and secular Jews, is not going alter American life to that extent in order to serve the religious hobbyhorses of some fringe nuts.
Actually, they've done that more times than you could count, most recently in their radical sodomy marriage decision. The Court, over a period of decades, changed sodomy from illegal in almost all 50 states to an institution of marriage with all the attendant legal protections in all 50 states. It makes me wonder if you're really a lawyer if you can say that with a straight face and expect someone to take you seriously. The Court is not particularly afraid of upending civic institutions, even those whose origins reach back thousands of years to the founding of the first civilizations.
It makes me wonder if you're really a lawyer if you can say that with a straight face and expect someone to take you seriously. The Court is not particularly afraid of upending civic institutions, even those whose origins reach back thousands of years to the founding of the first civilizations. Each court is different. (You're right that I don't give a fig about "sabbath days". The Sabbath was given to the Hebrews at Sinai. I'm not Jewish. Sunday is not the Catholic Sabbath, it is, rather, a Holy Day of Obligation (as are certain other days during the year, such as Ash Wednesday, Good Friday). The obligation to attend Mass on Sunday can be satisfied by attending the Saturday evening Vigil mass.)(Oh, and one is supposed to take the eucharist only once per day, according to the present rule.)(I don't care much about the "rules" - that's true.) If you don't take me seriously, that is not my problem. You have very peculiar, strong but marginal religious and political ideas and ideals. You're not accustomed to getting what you want out of the country's politics. I'm a status quo centrist type, insofar as "the way things are" - including their slow evolution from what they were to what they are becoming - generally suit me just fine. Issues involving gay rights - on those the court is likely to move goalposts in favor of something in line with "progress", as most people would see it. The Court is unlikely to impose religious restrictions that burden free private activity generally, on behalf of a marginal sect that is not progressive. I'm happy to place a wager on this one.
But you could float from church to church, gobbling all the Eucharists you like. So there is that. That is true enough. But policy never changes as the result of "status quo centrist" types until disaster forces change upon them. Naturally, I don't expect to change the world by posting on LP. I am always interested in how much currency certain issues have with the right wing. I consider the Left to be an entirely lost cause on the issues I care about. Like any scoundrel, I'll always take refuge with Sam Adams. Status quo centrists have never achieved anything in history. They just don't. It's foreign to their nature. Those of us who are are an "irate, tireless minority" may wait decades or a lifetime for our chance but every so often, history ineffably calls out our cause. And the world suddenly changes, no longer the plaything of the elites and the various "status quo centrists". It's taxpayer-funded with funds from federal sources and considerable existing regulation and court precedent. It is subject to Title IX and to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It is not, by definition, a "free private activity" in any sense. It is a voluntary exercise of opportunity provided equally and without encumbrance to all enrolled youth in American public schools. And it is an activity that is not essential to education and graduation but is instead extracurricular. I really don't think you've thought it through. Trying to dismiss it as "free private activity" is a joke when you consider how many court cases have been decided that explicitly deny such justifications for various types of discrimination, even on far weaker grounds than the ones in this case. The list of cases where similar plaintiffs have prevailed is too extensive to start listing here. What we really need is a transsexual Adventist Asian tennis player to bring a lawsuit. Then we could go all the way to the Supremes and get an answer. My guess is that the WIAA is smart enough not to appeal this loss and risk setting further binding precedent and that the other youth leagues will tiptoe around the scheduling of sports if there's any Adventists (or Jews) on their horizon.
Status quo centrists have never achieved anything in history. They just don't. Truths: (1) I could go back to several masses at my own church and the priests are either not going to notice that I've come up for the eucharist at each mass, or they won't care - the rule of "one eucharist per day" is a formal one that few pe people know pe people know (including priests, probably), and that nobody enforces. (2) I don't particularly like going to Church, more than a little bit of starts to feel like a waste of time. I definitely would not waste my time going to multiple masses - it would bore me to tears. (3) Status quo centrists win the wars, kept the country from dissolving in the Civil War, kept us from going either Nazi or Communist during the Great Depression. Kept us from a race war in the 1960s. Kept us in Vietnam until the treaty, and kept us from going back in after we withdrew. Kept Reagan and the Republicans of the 1980s and since from privatizing Social Security or Medicare. Eventually, centrists will get us to universal Medicare WITHOUT socializing everything the way the Left would have us do, but without giving the health insurers what they will always want.
You should have taken some courses in economics. Bad as the current system is, Medicare for all can only mean one thing. Healthcare rationing and very strict price controls for the medical industry and Big Pharma. Keep in mind, people are finding it harder and harder to even get a doctor if they have Medicare because the doctors say it pays too little and they can't take so many charity cases. There is one real bulwark that I see beyond the medical lobby and Big Pharma that makes me confident that Medicare For All will never happen: the trial lawyers will fight it tooth and nail, top to bottom, state court and legislature all the way to Congress and the Supremes. But all the talk of MFA may lead to the election of a prez/Congress that would tinker with ZeroCare even more and make it even more unworkable. Of course, I am an incurable optimist. Things will probably turn out much worse than I expect.
I took plenty of economics, and work in finance. I've experienced Medicare for ALL; the French system. It's much better than what we have. I think that, just as the issue of black rights finally truly demolished the old Klan South, and just as the issue of gay rights and prosperity gospel really demolished the Moral Majority, that this stalwart refusal to get good medical insurance to all will demolish the Republican Party. They are dug in on this, and things only get worse. It reminds me very much of the way that the Republicans dug in with regards to economic reform at the time of the New Deal, and dug in with isolationism before World War II. In the first instance, the people elected FDR and a Democrat New Deal supermajority in Congress, and FDR frightened the Supreme Court into submission, and didn't lose power again until 1994... In the second instance, the Japanese bombed us and Hitler declared war anyway, permanently discrediting the isolationist sentiment. I think that the stubborn refusal to provide health insurance to about 20% of the population, and the excruciating cost of what we do have to another 20-30% (and rising) will break the power of the Republicans. I think they, armed with the levers of government, will fight to the death on this one, as they did on those other ones, and I think their eventual political defeat on the matter will be calamitous, and will be accompanied by nearly revolutionary changes, including things like a wealth tax (which we do need) and free college (which we don't need). Simply put, you cannot deny a huge and growing portion of the population affordable (to them) health care and expect to hold the line. Racists deluded themselves into believing they could hold the line on race. Christians deluded themselves into believing they could hold the line on sex. Laisser-faire capitalists believed they could hold the line on regulation and taxation. And isolationists believed they could hold the line on military involvement with the world They were all dead wrong - foreseeably so - and when they finally fell under the weight of overwhelming pressure, the entire superstructure went down with them: they never were able to get back up, because they were not simply politically defeated but intellectually discredited. Christianity may fail, but that doesn't mean that the Aztecs will ever get another bite at the apple.
And France is a very small quaint country with its population conveniently concentrated. As with passenger rail systems which work well in small countries like France or Japan, you cannot easily scale that continental masses like America or Russia or China. And American longevity varies considerably by zip code, something you must already know. It is very difficult to compare the two in any fair way. Or something else will happen. The worldwide system of 800+ American bases is massively expensive even if they don't incur many casualties at present. But we do spend more than the next half-dozen Great Powers combined. And we are facing dangerous enemies who have secret or public nuclear weapons systems. That requires a very hard reckoning of where we spend defense dollars and how many we spend. The petrodollar which has stabilized petroleum at a lower price due to America becoming the world's leading oil supplier a year or so back. But the ongoing Boomer retirement and constantly escalating medical costs for their care is already a huge problem. SS/Medicare are, in fact, bankrupt and the prospect for improvement in their financial stability is dismal. Entire sectors of the economy are due to be overturned radically with the introduction of AI, drones, machine intelligence. We've barely seen the beginnings of what will happen over the next ten years. The future of the American workforce is about like the future of the workforce of most cloud computing centers or credit/debit cards processing centers: a few dozen workers on duty 24/7/365, tending the machines which are configured in a fail-over design. This will result in major expansion and capital investment but without the attendant employment. Large industries growing ever larger but without the cost of people working there. That is a reality that has already arrived in some sectors. We see the same patterns of blending bad mortgages with good mortgages as we saw prior to the 2009 crisis. And the same vulnerability to foreign-instigated currency destabilization. We are vastly overextended militarily around the world. We have a huge ongoing commitment to retirees that is only growing and the SS/Medicare/Medicaid system continues to grow. We are on the verge of seeing vast numbers of working class and middle class jobs simply disappear. And we are vulnerable to the same financial crises that brought us down in 2009, just as we remain quite vulnerable to non-state terrorism like 9/11 whose risks have been barely abated. We are running a trillion dollar deficit this year. We've been running high deficits for some time with national debt doubling in the last decade. We are seeing the end of the road in deficit financing as the steady growth of debt and the revolving interest payments start to suck the federal budget dry. You may hope for a crisis in which they choose (again) to vastly devalue the dollar but think of the retirees on fixed income, of the small farmers and small businessmen and all the rest. The elites and their servant class of professionals may feel immune to these things but I'm not so sure how far you can push Granny. There is considerable volatility in the system and a pervasive sense that things simply cannot continue along this trajectory. And the working class and middle class are not going to take it well when informed that they will just have to take it on the chin again. And that is what is different today than in some of the other issues you mentioned. Think about it. How else would a person like Donald Trump become president? There is real unrest in America across many sectors of society. And we are at the height of internal division in this country with over 40% of the residents being foreign-born and many determined never to assimilate. That never augurs well for the future. Yes, I think the future is more isolationist than at present, certainly multipolar again as it was in the Cold War and with the same opponents with up to a half-dozen new regional nuclear powers. I think medical costs will spiral as more people find it hard to find doctors and services. The oil boom will continue and will ease a little of the pain but even with very high tax rates, it cannot make up for the decades of irresponsible spending by scumbag pols in both parties who usually conspire for their own short-term gain at the expense of the public 10-20 years later. I think we might see a permanently unemployed class of Americans of 50 million or more in the next 10 years. I expect it will be at least 20 million. And the bulk of Boomer retirement is already over so you can't just hope the surplus workers will just retire (and live off the welfare system). So don't fool yourself. All these cards are still on the table, even if you want to pretend they aren't. And there is great unease and a crisis of confidence which really does help explain how Trump beat (the repulsive) Xlinton witch. The elites keep trying to cram their internationalist/interventionist crap down our throats and we don't want it. They regulated everything to death. They have no concern for mounting debt because they're confident they can retreat to their estates and just let the U.S. become a Third World country, overrun by invading hordes that they welcome into the country. There are inevitably, despite any arguments for open borders or heavy regulation, a level at which such practices poison the body politic. And I think Donald Trump's election tends to prove that point. Look at his policies on the wall and immigration, at deregulation, at fast-tracking pipelines and oil/energy exports. Those actually did help get him elected and will keep much of his base very loyal because he did deliver on those promises or at least went all out for them. Because of McStain, he did fail to defund 0bamaCare entirely, missing it by one vote in the Senate. The Stain's dying revenge on us all for electing that crude Trump character. He was a petty man which is why it was probably better that he never became prez. He was far worse than he ever accused Trump of being. And he was a fundamentally corrupt personality, like many of our inbred elites. In truth, these two plucky young Adventists are one of the few rays of sunshine on a darkening horizon. BTTT. We've devolved into general philosophic chat.
You've always had me wrong. I am one of the most realistic people on this site, or any other site you have been on. For example, when you say, above, that Social Security is bankrupt, I reply that it most certainly is not. Rather, it WOULD go bankrupt in the future, if nothing were done. The whole system can be made permanently solvent by eliminating the cap on Social Security, and hitting every dollar of wages earned by anybody in America (as opposed to every dollar of wages up to $132,000 per year), with the Social Security tax. Do that, and the system will be awash in money. It only goes bankrupt, eventually, if we do nothing, which is not going to happen. As far as the military position goes, we are in the best shape that we have ever been militarily. In the distant past, we relied on oceans to keep us safe. In the age of nuclear weapons, long range bombers and nuclear submarines, those moats no longer protect us from destruction. Back in the day, had the British, French or Germans decided to jump the ditch and invade America, they may not have been able to conquer it, but they could have done grievous damage, now, it's completely impossible. If every other nation in the world united in alliance against the US, the US Navy would sweep the seas of every other ship of every other nation, and rule the waves more completely than Britannia ever could hope. The British maintained a navy sufficient to defeat the next two navies compbined. Had France and Germany allied, the British had a navy sized to beat them. The American navy is sized to defeat the combined naval strength of the entire rest of the world. No other nation has ever had anything like the military preponderance, and therefore the security, that the USA currently enjoys. In truth, if we are realistic, only one other nation on earth can threaten our existence: Russia. The next two nuclear powers, France and Britain (in that order) have fewer than 300 weapons, total, and it would be impossible for them to ever muster the will to attack the United States, or even be able to secretly plan doing it without the US knowing in advance and taking counter-measures. China has perhaps 200 weapons, total, and only 90 missiles than can reach any part of the USA, assuming they can launch them without us first taking out many of them, and assuming we can't shoot many down. China could do us a nasty ravage, probably, but the response from us would be the end of the China. The small number of nuclear weapons available to India, Pakistan and Israel, and perhaps North Korea, cannot be delivered on US soil other than by terrorist acts. They lack the missiles to reach us. So, that leaves Russia as the one and only TRUE existential threat to the USA, if they were willing to commit national suicide. Even under Stalin they never contemplated that. By contrast, the American nuclear arsenal IS an existential threat to the countries that still might disturb the peace: Red China, Iran, North Korea - our list of enemies is actually quite thin now (contrary to your belief that we live in a dangerous world full of enemies). Only those four, plus perhaps Cuba and Venezuela (and, of course, Russia), and some benighted holes in Central Asia and Africa, are not already in the world alliance system, the Pax Americana, which is not an empire in the classical sense, but a world security organization. All we really need to do is make a firm and lasting peace with ONE country - Russia - and the rest of these pissant country issues fizzle out, except for China, which is well contained with Russia and America seeing eye-to-eye. Get the peace with Russia (bad for the American military-industrial and intelligence complex, good for the US economy overall because of what comes next), and the Cubas, Syrias and Irans fall in line. Only China remains, and China can be bargained with to protect its neighbors. We are on the cusp of a world security situation that can be a permanent Pax Americana at a much lower cost. That is what I want to drive for, and that is where I see our policy driving, ESPECIALLY given that Trump really does understand the Russia part of the equation. You're right about the fiscal situation, but there is a simple and necessary solution to that: tax wealth. That will impose a tax, for the first time, on securities holdings, which is the primary means of holding wealth in America (real estate is second, but that is already taxed). Taxed securities portfolios and bank accounts, and bullion and art holdings, at the same rate as homes are taxed (approximately 2%), and the fiscal problems dissolve. And with them you have the resources available to provide guaranteed minimum income and health insurance and education to all of those 50 million plus permanently unemployed people you envision thanks to the technical revolution. Sure, the rich are not going to cooperate gladly with wealth taxation, sure, it will take a middle and working class political shift by the majority to cram down a wealth tax upon them, but it will come, sooner or later, because it makes sense. The status quo that I support is that of the Middle Class/Working Class American dream. That will inevitably mean that the overweening, overly wealthy Upper Class American dream will be brought down a bit from its historic highs. There will be measured wealth redistribution without socialist revolution. The wealthy will bitch, but they will have nowhere to go, really. You see a bleak future. I see a future that is pretty bright, in which NONE of these fringy dreams - not of the rich, not of the religious nuts, not of the apocalyptics - wins out, but in which Middle and Working Class America simply assert their broad political power to shore up their own position, and thereby ensure the survival of the American Middle Class lifestyle as a thing to be preserved.
So the guy who pays $100,000 into Social Security every year will get the same as the guy who paid $5,000 into the system when they retire? Or will you increase the payout -- you know, to be fair. Here's an idea. Stop using Social Security funds to pay for disabilities (SSDI). That money should come from the general fund since it goes to all ages. There's $200 billion a year right there. Or raise the retirement age.
No, but the guy who pays $2 million per year in Social Security taxes will get the same as the guy who puts in $8500 a year. Social Security is a retirement program that should pay retirees enough to live securely at a middle-middle class standard of living. Nothing luxurious, but not penurious either. That means wealth redistribution, obviously. Always has. All taxation is ultimately wealth redistribution.
Obviously. FYI. Anyone who is required to who pay $2 million per year in Social Security taxes is smart enough to figure out how not to pay $2 million per year in Social Security taxes.
To pay that, somebody would have to be earning about $32 million per year. Tax codes have been structured specifically to give the escape valves for the r rich. Those escape valves need to be shut.
If they're earning that much they're being paid in stock, stock options, dividends, or some other form of compensation that is not subject to FICA.
And I prophesy that Vic will tell you that all those loopholes should be entirely eliminated along with a lot of other scammy tax deductions. Never say never, look how Trump capped the deductabiity of state/local taxes on federal tax forms (the so-called SALT deductions). I never thought any Republican would push that through but he did. There was a real hit on Blue states and their taxation patterns which forced the entire country to subsidize their high rates of state/local taxation.
Indeed. The purest taxation system is a unitary gross wealth tax, without deductions, set at the rate necessary to ensure that the country runs a balanced budget with a tiny surplus (to more rapidly reduce the debt). All taxes are taxes on wealth. Income taxes tax new wealth. Sales taxes tax the exchanges of wealth. Property and estate taxes tax static wealth. The loopholes in the system are those things that avoid taxation. Yes, close those. One unitary rate on all gross wealth, no additional taxes.
You'd be surprised how many conservatives/Republicans you could get to agree with you. Except they have extreme distrust toward the pols. The spending never gets cut, the waste, fraud and abuse go on virtually without interruption (or a few token prosecutions are held to great media fanfare to try to convince the rubes that the pols kept their promises).
Liberals and Independents too. The tax RATE is the same for the homeless guy as Bill Gates: let's say 3.5% of total wealth. That MEANS no sales tax, no income tax, no capital gains tax, no estate tax, no excise taxes and no separate car registration or property taxes. It actually COULD mean no fees for public transportation, no bridge tolls - the whole apparatus of government operating off of the tax base. It's FAIR, because EVERYBODY pays the same tax rate, on everything - wages are wealth, so yes, there is, in effect, an income tax, but not as such: it's a wealth tax. The massive concentration of power in America does not come from high wages, but from the concentration of WEALTH, and all of the taxes in the tax code attack wealth ACCUMULATION - making it harder to accumulate it - while leaving accumulated wealth - other than middle class wealth (houses and cars) untaxed. If you JUST tax wealth instead, directly, at a low rate, without any exemptions, you can ensure that everybody is in the system), you collect more money, and it doesn't warp the system; it DOES encourage investment, because a pile of money sitting in a bank account now not only ebbs in value from inflation, but is drawn down by 3.5% per year in taxes. Money is driven to be invested. Capital gains are no longer an issue, in the sense that the capital gains taxes currently severely warp the economy by setting people's behavior. There's no incentive to hold property in one form versus another, nor to time transactions or create great complicated spaghetti bowls of corporate structures to evade corporate taxes. Offshoring becomes pointless: the US taxes globally, so you'll be taxed on the wealth you hold offshore just the same. It's simpler to monitor. In effect, it gives the working and middle classes a huge tax break, because currently those classes pay about 40% of their earnings to the government. Note it's a GROSS wealth tax, not a NET WORTH tax. A net worth tax gives one a tax break for debt, and encourages debt as a tax shelter. None of that. You know, I can wax large on the beauty and practicality of such a system, and on its eminent fairness, how it sets the right burden, at the same percentage, on everyone (and is thus fairer than any other taxation system). But you're right: regardless of HOW you tax, what you spend the money ON, and at what levels, will end up being more important. After all, you can have my perfect and fair tax system, and end up giving the wealthy back the taxes they paid with corruption and stockjobbing contracts, so what have you really done? I don't think that in a republican democracy it really is possible to prevent that, other than through a system that forbids the government to keep any confidential records. And that's not workable in a world in which all are not within the Pax Americana (and probably even then...)
You're full of it Vic. 8 And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces, 39 And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts: 40 Which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation. 41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. 42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. 43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: 44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
You hate fairness to the core of your being.
How is it fair for the poor to pay more? The rich pay out of their abundance.
The poor and working classes already pay more, as a proportion of their wealth, than the rich do. It's already not fair. A gross wealth tax fixes that by raising the taxes on the rich so they pay the SAME percentages of their wealth as the poor and middle class already do. To balance the scales, the rich need to pay a lot more out of their abundance than they do.
#181. To: Vicomte13 (#180)
And I just showed you paying the same percentage isn't fair the rich should pay a higher percentage.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latesta Protestant denomination that observes Sabbath on Saturday as recorded in the Bible, sued the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA)
#14. To: watchman (#1)
I can't get behind this.
#19. To: misterwhite, redleghunter (#14)
I'm with you. I'm all for religious freedom, but when you commit to a team you commit to their rules -- which clearly stated that if an athlete could not commit to playing in every level of the tournament, barring injury or illness, they were not allowed to participate at all and would be subject to penalty.
#24. To: Tooconservative (#19)
#31. To: misterwhite (#24)
Yay, heathen though I may be, rules are rules.
#32. To: Tooconservative (#31)
You're saying you want to disqualify athletes on the basis of religious practice.
#35. To: misterwhite (#32)
Let's keep in mind, SHE refused to play. It's not as though the WIAA didn't allow her to play on the basis of her religious practice.
#41. To: Tooconservative (#35)
No, the WIAA decided to schedule games to punish the participation of these athletes who the WIAA had cause to know would not participate on their sabbath.
#42. To: misterwhite, watchman (#41)
#44. To: Tooconservative (#42)
Seems to be about what most of you think about the 4th commandment and any idea of keeping a sabbath holy (whatever that entails).
#46. To: misterwhite (#44)
You are turning this issue into a grand theological debate when it only affect two fanatics who interpret the fourth commandment differently than everyone else.
#49. To: Tooconservative (#46)
it is only "fanatics" that would insist on observing the 4th commandment in any meaningful way
#50. To: misterwhite (#49)
They insist on changing the rules of a crappy bush league sport which affected nobody before they showed up and will affect nobody when they leave.
#51. To: Tooconservative (#50)
You fear that this might spread or you wouldn't be so vehement against these Adventist commandment fanatics.
#52. To: misterwhite (#51)
Two people, for purely selfish reasons, changing the rules for participants from 800 statewide schools through threat of legal action just so they can play under their interpretation of the fourth commandment.
#99. To: Tooconservative (#52)
I'd like to see it go all the way to the Supreme Court and set national precedents.
#104. To: Vicomte13, A K A Stone (#99)
Supreme Court, I expect, will uphold freedom of sport over against enforced respect for anybody's "Sabbath".
#107. To: Tooconservative (#104)
Any good lawyer could drive a truck bomb through the school's legal defense. I think it would lead to a unanimous Court verdict in favor of the Adventists.
#108. To: Vicomte13 (#107)
Saturday sports have been a part of the American scene for a very, very long time. A Supreme Court composed entirely of Catholics and secular Jews, is not going alter American life to that extent in order to serve the religious hobbyhorses of some fringe nuts.
#126. To: Tooconservative (#108)
Actually, they've done that more times than you could count, most recently in their radical sodomy marriage decision. The Court, over a period of decades, changed sodomy from illegal in almost all 50 states to an institution of marriage with all the attendant legal protections in all 50 states.
#129. To: Vicomte13 (#126)
(Edited)
(Oh, and one is supposed to take the eucharist only once per day, according to the present rule.)
You have very peculiar, strong but marginal religious and political ideas and ideals.
"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." - Samuel Adams The Court is unlikely to impose religious restrictions that burden free private activity generally, on behalf of a marginal sect that is not progressive.
#135. To: Tooconservative (#129)
But you could float from church to church, gobbling all the Eucharists you like. So there is that.
#142. To: Vicomte13 (#135)
Eventually, centrists will get us to universal Medicare WITHOUT socializing everything the way the Left would have us do, but without giving the health insurers what they will always want.
#151. To: Tooconservative (#142)
(Edited)
#155. To: Vicomte13 (#151)
I've experienced Medicare for ALL; the French system. It's much better than what we have.
They were all dead wrong - foreseeably so - and when they finally fell under the weight of overwhelming pressure, the entire superstructure went down with them: they never were able to get back up, because they were not simply politically defeated but intellectually discredited. Christianity may fail, but that doesn't mean that the Aztecs will ever get another bite at the apple.
#156. To: Tooconservative (#155)
So don't fool yourself. All these cards are still on the table, even if you want to pretend they aren't.
#164. To: Vicomte13 (#156)
The whole system can be made permanently solvent by eliminating the cap on Social Security
#165. To: misterwhite (#164)
So the guy who pays $100,000 into Social Security every year will get the same as the guy who paid $5,000 into the system when they retire?
#166. To: Vicomte13 (#165)
That means wealth redistribution, obviously.
#167. To: misterwhite (#166)
Anyone who is required to who pay $2 million per year in Social Security taxes is smart enough to figure out how not to pay $2 million per year in Social Security taxes.
#168. To: Vicomte13 (#167)
To pay that, somebody would have to be earning about $32 million per year.
#169. To: misterwhite, Vicomte13 (#168)
If they're earning that much they're being paid in stock, stock options, dividends, or some other form of compensation that is not subject to FICA.
#170. To: Tooconservative (#169)
And I prophesy that Vic will tell you that all those loopholes should be entirely eliminated along with a lot of other scammy tax deductions.
#171. To: Vicomte13 (#170)
Indeed. The purest taxation system is a unitary gross wealth tax, without deductions, set at the rate necessary to ensure that the country runs a balanced budget with a tiny surplus (to more rapidly reduce the debt).
#172. To: Tooconservative (#171)
You'd be surprised how many conservatives/Republicans you could get to agree with you.
#173. To: Vicomte13 (#172)
It's FAIR, because EVERYBODY pays the same tax rate,
#175. To: A K A Stone (#173)
#178. To: Vicomte13 (#175)
#180. To: A K A Stone (#178)
How is it fair for the poor to pay more? The rich pay out of their abundance.
Replies to Comment # 180.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 180.
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