Does anyone on this forum consider themself as being " woke "

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Although we do benefit from it I still don't see why it's fair to tax the higher earners more for doing better at life. Yeah it's easy think it is sat there with your Pot Noodle but...it's late
 
FoxEye said:
In fairly simplistic terms, flat tax does sound inherently "fair", tbh. But how would you address the shortfall in tax revenue compared to today?

I don't think you could set universal tax rate at 50% without crippling the low-paid or needing to give them substantial rebates (making it no longer a flat tax anyhow).

At the other extreme, if you set it at 20% you'd lose tons of tax revenue, and services would need to be cut dramatically.

So although it's arguably more "fair", I'm not sure how you'd begin to balance the books.
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You are forgetting the pre-bate checks.

If the collective decides that 20k/year is what everyone "needs" then the tax on 20k is sent at the beginning of the year. Now no one will be paying tx on the money they "need" because the government cut them a check.

My favorite part about this approach is the self-balancing nature of the pre-bate vs the tax rate. The higher the "need" line is moved, the higher the tax rate must be to pay for the government.

People can't just vote for higher tax rates on "the other guy"...they will have to pay their fair share.

"All in favor of making that rich guy in the corner pay for our stuff..." will be more difficult too.


If it turns out that the whole of the people can't find an acceptable "need"-line/tax-rate combo, well then, the people will need to have an honest discussion about the proper size and scope (and cost) of government.

Such a discussion cannot take place in good faith when people have the ability to stick others with the bill.
 
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adolf hamster said:
Did you miss the bit where i pointed out the context is very different?

If the lesson was along the lines of "the history of provocative artistic works centering on religious figures" you might have a point, but that seems a little advanced for a school re class.....
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The context was arguably more offensive for Christians, yes.
 
adolf hamster said:
That does seem pretty insensitive though. Out of context at least it's not exactly a secret that images of the prophet are offensive in islam, which is what the school should be teaching (i mean the aim is for the kids to understand muslim beleifs and customs).

There are valid reasons to display some contraversial material, especially for educational purposes but i cant see what reason there would be to display such an image when the lesson of "displaying images of the prophet is offensive" can be acheived without displaying an image.
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*shrug*

Im offended by many things to do with religion, especially Islam, I dont go round trying to get people sacked though and holding a school hostage, anyone remember that LGBT book at the primary school debacle two yrs ago? More pandering to the angry mob, its a disgrace.
 
Here is some wokeness in action - I don't know how the woke defenders can really defend this sort of stuff, pretty clear it isn't just a new version of political corredtness or the continuation of the civil rights struggle:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...families-living-poverty-500-month-checks.html

A program to give $500 monthly checks to low-income families of color in Oakland, California, has been criticized for explicitly excluding the 10,000 white residents living in poverty in the city.

The lottery system, funded by private philanthropists, will see the no-strings-attached checks go to households with an annual income of less than $59,000 if they have at least one child. The other half of the $500 checks will go to those earning under $30,000.

[...]

Schaaf told the Associated Press the reason for limiting eligibility to black, indigenous and other people of color was that white households in Oakland make on average about three times as much as black households.
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^^^ see the obvious flaw of wokeness right there -treating people as a homogenous group... if they want to exclude higher-income people then just exclude higher-income people... you shouldn't exclude people based on skin colour simply because other people with a similar skin colour earn more.
 
Not at all.

I used to be in my 20s before I grew up.

Life is more nuanced. More grey.

I also cannot listen to young people have serious conversations. Their inexperience is painfully obvious.
 
adolf hamster said:
There are valid reasons to display some contraversial material, especially for educational purposes but i cant see what reason there would be to display such an image when the lesson of "displaying images of the prophet is offensive" can be acheived without displaying an image.
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To promote (historically) western values of tolerance and free expression which is arguably the reason the west became so successful in the first place? teach children that showing a picture, whilst disrespectful, isn't going to cause any actual harm and in a civilised country decapitating someone is not an appropriate response.
 
Woke, to me, are those that spout bile about equality at all costs, whilst happily waiving their iPhone that was made in basically a sweatshop. Inexperienced young people who are perfect examples of life experts in the Dunning Kruger model. Who's opinion matters MORE than yours and who won't engage in debate on opposing views without throwing the race card or similar when challenged on their views. In the same ballgame as Champagne Socialists
 
mmj_uk said:
To promote (historically) western values of tolerance and free expression which is arguably the reason the west became so successful in the first place? teach children that showing a picture, whilst disrespectful, isn't going to cause any actual harm and in a civilised country decapitating someone is not an appropriate response.
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The response certainly is going over the top, but just goes to show how offensive it is to muslims.

I'm all for freedom of expression, and i absolutely agree that within history, the arts, and comedy there should be no limits, if you can lampoon the mormons, christians, jews, catholics etc then the muslims should have no exception.

However its a classroom, and in that context some consideration should be taken.

Its really not hard to get the notion that sometimes its ok to say/do things, and sometimes it is not. Its no different to cutting out swearing when at work but not when out with freinds.
 
dowie said:
Here is some wokeness in action - I don't know how the woke defenders can really defend this sort of stuff, pretty clear it isn't just a new version of political corredtness or the continuation of the civil rights struggle:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...families-living-poverty-500-month-checks.html



^^^ see the obvious flaw of wokeness right there -treating people as a homogenous group... if they want to exclude higher-income people then just exclude higher-income people... you shouldn't exclude people based on skin colour simply because other people with a similar skin colour earn more.
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Right...but the people running the scheme didn't want to exclude higher-income people. They wanted to exclude people they deem to be the most inferior race. So that's what they did. Them blaming the victims of their racism for their racism is just an excuse. It's nothing new. For example, anti-Jewish prejudice and discrimination in medieval Europe usually blamed Jews, often including the claim that Jews are privileged and therefore deserve to be discriminated against. There is nothing new about "woke" apart from the new brand name. The irrational prejudice, the hypocrisy, the victim-blaming, the excuses...none of that is new.
 
regulus said:
I also cannot listen to young people have serious conversations. Their inexperience is painfully obvious.
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How did it make you feel when you were young and wanted to have serious conversations about righting the world with 'grown ups' who thought you were painfully inexperienced?

Guess it didn't happen, right?
 
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