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Post by theevan on Oct 29, 2014 21:04:55 GMT -5
If politicians and would be politicians were exempted from tax if they didn't use their position to make appeals to people on religious grounds. I wonder how that would play out. I wonder how it would play out if they didn't use their position to make appeals to people playing on envy and greed...or patriotism...or ecological grounds. How do you treat one form of speech differently than the others? If taxing the religious organizations like the rest would eliminate the temptation for the feds (of whatever stripe) to meddle in religious speech, then maybe that's the way to go. But the temptation will remain, if history teaches us...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2014 21:16:26 GMT -5
I think churches should be treated by the federal income tax code exactly the same as any other incorporated entity. But then, I don't think there should be any taxes on income for any incorporated entity, so there's that. Okay. I get that. I don't think that it is a view that makes for a safe and healthy modern, industrial, capitalist society but that is not something we will see eye to eye on any time soon. Nor is it an opinion that can be adequately debated with my less than stellar typing skills and in the context of this thread.
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Tamarack
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Post by Tamarack on Oct 29, 2014 21:26:02 GMT -5
Thomas Jefferson's famous "wall of separation" letter was a response to a letter from a group of pastors in Danbury, Connecticut. The tone of both letters was exceedingly polite.
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Post by RickW on Oct 29, 2014 21:28:24 GMT -5
Personally, I think it's ridiculous that religious organizations don't pay taxes. If they want to do good works, they can create and run charities, and get a tax deduction for supporting them like anyone else.
I have a personal problem with churches being involved in politics, because over the centuries that has led to a lot of bad decisions and pain. Too much of an ability to control what believers think. But that's my personal belief, and I really don't see how you can restrict what they say.
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Post by jdd2 on Oct 30, 2014 3:10:16 GMT -5
I read it all first time thru, bouncing over to wikipedia to read about LBJ and some other things. Nothing that I could add, but thanks for the interesting read.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 30, 2014 7:27:00 GMT -5
What does that have to do with anything? In a thread that discusses the separation of church and state and taxation? There are connections, less tangential than often observed here. Oh, then I think any politician who is exempted from the taxes they levy on other people should be shot regardless of who they are shilling for.
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Post by fauxmaha on Oct 30, 2014 8:11:33 GMT -5
Regarding the Jefferson letter, the pull quote has always been "building a wall of separation between Church and State", but I've always thought the most important line was "the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions".
That tells me that Jefferson etal understood the First amendment to say something like "Government can not tell you what to think".
In their day, the social systems that were engaged in the business of telling you what to think were almost entirely religious.
But since then, all manner of secular (a very vague word) institutions have emerged in the "tell you what to think" business. The government itself spends quite a bit of time telling you what to think.
And the First amendment has been almost perfectly inverted in the process. An amendment written with the intent of "Government can not tell you what to think, so we will make a special amendment carving out special protection for the social structures who's business it is to guide thought and conscience" (thus elevating the role of religious institutions in society), we have perverted it into "Government can actively engage in the business of telling you what to think, so long as the form of the telling is nominally irreligious."
Which leads inevitably to what we saw in Houston, where the power of government was used to suppress religious expression. That's the one thing you can always count on from government. It is the ultimate monopoly, and it doesn't cotton folks cutting in on its action. Once government got into the "tell you what to think" business, it was only a matter of time before it came after others operating in the same space.
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Post by millring on Oct 30, 2014 8:46:06 GMT -5
And the First amendment has been almost perfectly inverted in the process. An amendment written with the intent of "Government can not tell you what to think, so we will make a special amendment carving out special protection for the social structures who's business it is to guide thought and conscience" (thus elevating the role of religious institutions in society), we have perverted it into "Government can actively engage in the business of telling you what to think, so long as the form of the telling is nominally irreligious." I might add that the inversion (perversion?) is more complete than that. It's not just that the government is increasingly in the "telling you what you must think" business. It's that an increasing number of people believe the government's role is perversely exactly to limit religious expression -- specifically, as it might interface with public policy (see Russell's post). Rather than letting democracy do its natural limiting of the possibility that sectarian thought might influence public policy by virtue of the improbability that esoteric beliefs would ever be expressed in a public policy that is voted on by a majority, it has (in the minds of many as expressed by Russell) become seen as a proactive "freedom FROM religion" clause. (that's one of the main reasons SO many of our citizens actually think that "separation of church and state" IS in the constitution) In short, many think the government is the hammer to pound down religious expression (ironically, even among the religious who think it would be handy to, for instance, pound down sharia law before Islam becomes a majority religion in the USA and, thus, gets expressed as public policy). The curious thing, of course, is that the above (the "freedom from religion" coalition) is the expression of neo-atheism in the public square, attempting to influence public policy in exactly the same manner as they criticize the religious for doing, but audaciously supposing that they can do so because atheism would then be supreme as the only philosophy not covered in the "Freedom From Religion" clause that it just interpreted from the Constitution in this new post-modern way of reading the Constitution in a manner that it can mean whatever the Supreme Court says it means without regard for original intent.
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Dub
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Post by Dub on Oct 30, 2014 10:40:59 GMT -5
Whoa! Lots of great thoughts here no contentious posts. I like this a lot.
I'm sure hundreds (if not thousands) of books have been written about the First Amendment. The First Amendment has also been the subject of untold academic papers, theses, legal briefs, and judicial opinions. When the First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, does the word "respecting" mean to honor or show deference to? Or does it mean with respect to (concerning)? Likewise, what is the meaning of "free exercise?" Is this free as in free beer or free as in without restriction? Or are all possible definitions implied and intended? I'm guessing (with a complete absence of actual knowledge) that the intended definition of respecting was to show deference to, since having a state religion was one of the specific issues the colonists were trying to address.
I think it's nearly impossible to separate religion and politics. Religious movements have always been political movements, Christianity not the least. And those religio-political movements have often been coopted and repurposed by powerful forces when it was politic to do so. Scientology may be the only church we have that remains as it was envisioned. I see no problem in taxing religious institutions in a system where taxation is an important way to move money. If an organization has no purpose but to provide aid in the form of income, goods, and services to the needy then I can see giving that organization a tax break.
How government should be funded is a different question. An argument can be made that the only real taxpayers are those individuals and organizations who lack the ability to pass their burden to others through the marketplace. The tax burden of corporations becomes part of their cost structure and is recouped through sales of goods and services. Whether taxes are paid directly or indirectly through purchases has little bearing on the actual amount of one's income that ultimately goes to taxes.
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Post by Doug on Oct 30, 2014 10:50:25 GMT -5
How government should be funded is a different question. An argument can be made that the only real taxpayers are those individuals and organizations who lack the ability to pass their burden to others through the marketplace. The tax burden of corporations becomes part of their cost structure and is recouped through sales of goods and services. Whether taxes are paid directly or indirectly through purchases has little bearing on the actual amount of one's income that ultimately goes to taxes. You got it Mark, no matter what the tax structure is only the poor (who lack the ability to pass their burden to others through the marketplace) pay taxes.
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Post by fauxmaha on Oct 30, 2014 10:56:21 GMT -5
If an organization has no purpose but to provide aid in the form of income, goods, and services to the needy then I can see giving that organization a tax break. Like WalMart?
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Post by fauxmaha on Oct 30, 2014 11:04:58 GMT -5
All flippancy aside, that (the WalMart) thing is a great example of how thoroughly our politics is infused with religious thought.
No organization, any where in the world, clothes and feeds more people than WalMart. Not even close, really. And their customers tend to be on the lower end of the economic spectrum.
WalMart is, literally, "feeding the poor".
And yet they are routinely vilified, and their customers are frequently mocked and put down (the whole "people of WalMart" meme).
How curious is that?
WalMart is criticized because they are motivated by profit rather than altruism. Which is to say that if WalMart practiced asceticism, they would be celebrated. By the same people who strenuously reject religious influence in politics and culture. Of course, if WalMart practices asceticism, they wouldn't be able to feed the poor like they do.
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Post by patrick on Oct 30, 2014 11:39:00 GMT -5
No organization, any where in the world, clothes and feeds more people than WalMart. Not even close, really. And their customers tend to be on the lower end of the economic spectrum. WalMart is, literally, "feeding the poor". WalMart doesn't feed and clothe people any more than Honda and Shell Oil give me a ride to work. They SELL me stuff, they don't give it away. I think we are conflating two different concepts in this discussion, one is "religion" and the other is the particular organization's financial dealings. You can practice your religion the old fashioned way, stand in a field and talk to whoever will stop to listen. Nothing to tax there. But when you set up an organization that owns property, has an income, investments, etc., I fail to see why that part of it should not get taxed. A church that also runs a business, such as a store selling religious items, gets taxed on their business dealings, why not all of their income?
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Post by fauxmaha on Oct 30, 2014 12:21:59 GMT -5
No organization, any where in the world, clothes and feeds more people than WalMart. Not even close, really. And their customers tend to be on the lower end of the economic spectrum. WalMart is, literally, "feeding the poor". WalMart doesn't feed and clothe people any more than Honda and Shell Oil give me a ride to work. They SELL me stuff, they don't give it away. I think you just made my point. The distinction you draw between a commercial transaction and a charitable transaction is arbitrary and based on deeply rooted religious attitudes and traditions in our culture.
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Post by Russell Letson on Oct 30, 2014 12:29:57 GMT -5
In their day, the social systems that were engaged in the business of telling you what to think were almost entirely religious. But since then, all manner of secular (a very vague word) institutions have emerged in the "tell you what to think" business. The government itself spends quite a bit of time telling you what to think. Governments have long made rules about what one can say, what one can advocate, and various manners of expression short of overt rebellion or criminal activity--see lèse-majesté, sedition, and flag descration. Unlike religions (which were indeed the big dogs in the thought-police biz), governmental bodies were more concerned with expression than with private opinion and belief, though governments were often (and remain) quite sensitive to the semiotics of dissent that might signal eventual overt action or mere opposition, however theoretically loyal. The First Amendment's omnium-gatherum of stuff Congress "make no law respecting . . . prohibiting . . . or abridging" is clearly a response to what governments had been doing for the previous couple of centuries, which included mixing matters of political and religious authority. "Secular" is not at all a vague word, any more than "religious" is, at least in careful discourse*. In this context, secularism is a position concerning the relationship between private religious belief and public policy and action. Specifically, it is the assertion that private (no matter how broadly shared) supernaturalist or religious beliefs should not become part of public governance or policy. That, for example, no law should cite an exclusively religious reason for being. When John writes that "an increasing number of people believe the government's role is perversely exactly to limit religious expression -- specifically, as it might interface with public policy," I stop at "perversely" and "expression." To take the second word first, it is not expression that is the problem, it is action in the form of policy or regulation, and the rationale for that action. Laws forbidding the teaching of evolution or mandating the teaching of intelligent design are clearly sectarian, not secular. Most blue laws (particularly Sunday closing laws) were clearly sectarian. (It wasn't Friday or Saturday but the Christian day of rest and worship that was targeted.) Prohibitions on birth control were sectarian. I would insist that any prayer at an official governmental function is sectarian in that prayer is directed at a supernatural entity. (I could work up a secular invocation suitable for various events, but most people would probably find it unsatisfactory, lacking as it would any hope of having our bacon saved by anybody but ourselves.) Now to "perversely." Given that it is not mere expression of private belief that is at stake, how can it be perverse to assert that making such private religious belief the rationale for public action is a bad idea--in fact, a fatally bad idea? What this secularist would like to see limited is not mere expression--even by public servants, as much as I see that as electioneering most of the time--but the construction of rationales out of exclusively religious epistemologies and world-views. There is a whole sub-discussion about privileged epistemologies that applies here, but this has already rambled enough for one post. * Meaning, none of that obfuscuatory nonsense in which "religion" means "any strongly held belief or practice."
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Post by Russell Letson on Oct 30, 2014 12:32:14 GMT -5
I think you just made my point. The distinction you draw between a commercial transaction and a charitable transaction is arbitrary and based on deeply rooted religious attitudes and traditions in our culture. I'm sure Patrick can take care of himself, but I have to say I can see exactly where the card was palmed here.
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Post by brucemacneill on Oct 30, 2014 13:10:46 GMT -5
* Meaning, none of that obfuscuatory nonsense in which "religion" means "any strongly held belief or practice." Russell said.
I hope he understands that that is only nonsense in his religion. In others, maybe most, it's an accepted truth.
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Post by fauxmaha on Oct 30, 2014 13:12:01 GMT -5
In their day, the social systems that were engaged in the business of telling you what to think were almost entirely religious. But since then, all manner of secular (a very vague word) institutions have emerged in the "tell you what to think" business. The government itself spends quite a bit of time telling you what to think. Governments have long made rules about what one can say, what one can advocate, and various manners of expression short of overt rebellion or criminal activity--see lèse-majesté, sedition, and flag descration. Unlike religions (which were indeed the big dogs in the thought-police biz), governmental bodies were more concerned with expression than with private opinion and belief, though governments were often (and remain) quite sensitive to the semiotics of dissent that might signal eventual overt action or mere opposition, however theoretically loyal. The First Amendment's omnium-gatherum of stuff Congress "make no law respecting . . . prohibiting . . . or abridging" is clearly a response to what governments had been doing for the previous couple of centuries, which included mixing matters of political and religious authority. "Secular" is not at all a vague word, any more than "religious" is, at least in careful discourse*. In this context, secularism is a position concerning the relationship between private religious belief and public policy and action. Specifically, it is the assertion that private (no matter how broadly shared) supernaturalist or religious beliefs should not become part of public governance or policy. That, for example, no law should cite an exclusively religious reason for being. When John writes that "an increasing number of people believe the government's role is perversely exactly to limit religious expression -- specifically, as it might interface with public policy," I stop at "perversely" and "expression." To take the second word first, it is not expression that is the problem, it is action in the form of policy or regulation, and the rationale for that action. Laws forbidding the teaching of evolution or mandating the teaching of intelligent design are clearly sectarian, not secular. Most blue laws (particularly Sunday closing laws) were clearly sectarian. (It wasn't Friday or Saturday but the Christian day of rest and worship that was targeted.) Prohibitions on birth control were sectarian. I would insist that any prayer at an official governmental function is sectarian in that prayer is directed at a supernatural entity. (I could work up a secular invocation suitable for various events, but most people would probably find it unsatisfactory, lacking as it would any hope of having our bacon saved by anybody but ourselves.) And I can see where you palmed the card there. But as long as "palming a card" is shorthand for "not willing to acknowledge a different perspective", I'll continue. Your palmed card had the effect of explicitly rejecting precisely the point I was making. Taken in the context of the time, I assert that the First amendment was fundamentally about prohibiting the government from telling people what to think. The modernist approach of superficially divesting "religion/supernaturalism" from "coherent and comprehensive world view" has been used ("perversely", in John's formulation) to assert (and here we find the palmed card) that the First amendment does not apply. Which has reduced it from its original meaning to the entirely perverse result that many now maintain that it creates a right to freedom from exposure to religious thought or practice, or at a minimum (more on this in a moment) a freedom from the religious expression of others with regard to otherwise secular governmental actions. Speaking of palmed cards, you'll find one when you hear politicians speaking of "freedom of worship" rather than "freedom of religion". This is where your palmed card gets wrapped around the axle. It goes back to Jefferson's distinction between thought and action. You are proposing a system where the preceding thought either validates or invalidates an action. That is a "fatally bad idea". And also one that is quite impossible. In a political debate, it is convenient and rather lazy (a better word might be tribalistic) to question a given proposal based on the origin of the proposer's motivations, but the proper analysis is based solely on utility. The fact that much of our criminal law finds its roots in the Ten Commandments does not mean that statutes against murder and theft are an impermissible imposition of religion. It only means that certain ideas regarding how to structure a society have proven durable over history, and that those same ideas were codified 3000 years ago using the then-current structures available, just as we do so today.
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Post by Doug on Oct 30, 2014 13:21:52 GMT -5
How come the prohibitee gets to set limits to the prohibition?
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Post by Russell Letson on Oct 30, 2014 14:11:54 GMT -5
Bruce: Playing Carrollian Humpty Dumpty* won't help. There's a significant distinction among and between senses of "religion" as used in casual conversation and in serious discussion of, well, religion. If you think I have a religion because I have a moral sense or a systematic set of hypotheses about how the universe works, you're wrong. I have no religion. I do, however, have an excellent knowledge of what words mean.
'faux: Your response is so full of misapprensions and/or distortions of my post that it would take the rest of the afternoon to unpack them. Maybe I'll get around to it when I've met my overdue column deadline. But the short version is, you misrepresent what I wrote and conflate my position with a couple of straw men not of my acquaintance.
* Brain fart there--it's not the caterpillar.
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