I'll up it to $20! My money is on him! :up:

-S

Why? Switzerland is neutral.:D Ze Germans cannot hurt us!:rotfl:

The idea of Income tax was born with the Socialist Labor Party (no surprize there!), which was organized and ran by a Marxist. The whole concept was born od communistsic ideaology.

Or not depending on which cerial packet you get your history from.

The back of my packet says that income tax was first levied by PM William Pitt, the younger in Britain, in 1798 to pay for the Napoleonic war.

Long before Karl Marx was even a twinkle in big daddy Marx's eye.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax

tz-tz, another attempt to label anything one does not like as socialism and communism. It's a verbal overkill-super-wonder-weapon, it seems. the ultimate win-the-lottery-without-even-buying-a-ticket- argument. Even blanks win the jackpot, or what? Just say "Communism!" without stuttering, and smile - and you already have won!

Don't remember the names and year exactly, but can confirm yes, it was Britain against Napoleon, sometime late 18th century. Potentially, France was the wealthiest nation of Europe of that time, but it made bad use of it's rich agriculture, and the French leaders - including Napoleon - did not put much emphasis on financial politics regarding the banking system, and still they became wealthy enough to finance Napoleon's european ambitions, and the reforming and re-equipping of Napoleon'S armies. Britain, on the other hand, was isolated, fought hard not to get cut off from trade and the incomes from that, and had to "invent" new ways to reorganize it's state incomes to survive the long struggle with the French - if they would have stuck to their old system and would not have reformed their private banking system, they would not have endured the resistance against finacially superior France, even more so since in population and agriculture Britain was smaller than France. Their reforms went far beyond just implementing an income tax. It more compares to an almost new financial economy system.

The struggle against Napoelon was not only won on the battlefield at Waterloo. It was prepared by the somewhat reforming of the English bank system and a new system of raising state finances in Britain, and the mechnaism by which the state lend money from private banks. without Britain doing that, Prussia, Austria and/or Russia would probably have been unable to finally defeat Napoleon and throw France back to it's own borders - it would have continued to dominate Europe. From a British perspective, it was not "Wellington at Waterloo holding out until the Prussians came" being the deciding factor, but the British financial reforms. Without them, Wellington never would have been able to lead a British army to the fields at Waterloo. Britain would have become bancrupt much earlier.

A very rough and short summary only, I know. But in principle, that'S it. For more details I would need to re-read my history book.

One could even go back much further, into the medieval. The churche'S "decimae personales", that ruoled that 10 percent of all earnings by traders and farmers had to be given to the church, could be seen as the first form of income taxes. In Prussia, the first "tax per head" also was raised in the 18th century, I think even before the English came with their income tax. China had the first form of income tax two thousand years ago (Mao was not born, then ;) ).

Nice summary Skybird.:up:

As a nation Britain was really punching above its weight against Napoleon's huge and wealthy continental empire and needed large sums of cash quickly. I believe quite a number of innovative ways were developed by the British government to fund its military spending during the Napoleonic Wars, including levying a tax on wig-powder, eventually making the wearing of wigs too expensive and stopping the fashion for them; which I guess can only be a good thing, unless your a wig maker that is!:D

Good grief, I go out of town and i almost missed all of the fun.:oops: A communism thread! ..or was is a Napoleonic thread? I've lost track now.:roll:

I'm frankly sick of both parties! they are both for big gov't and waste my money on stupid @$#$%.:x

We need to term limit all of these "career chumps" outta office.

What is the role of national gov't?

...State gov't?

...local gov't?

We need to elect responsible people. Americans need to be personally responsible!


And the thing that makes me most pissed off, are these politicians that raise my taxes then weasle out of paying theirs:x :x :x .

I say pick a flat tax with no deductions, and do a budget accordingly.

No surprise, I agree. Unfortunately, the only candidate with those kind of views was defeated in the primaries, by a large margin. Evidently, he or his views were so disliked that he wasn't even allowed to attend several of the "debates", and when he did get as much time to talk as most of the others.

Obama talks about change and I laugh. What change? More state overspending and leftist expansion of government? That's been going on for over 70 years, and not one administration has ever reconciled spending, inflation, trade defecit, massive war debts, or any other major problems for any but the shortest preriod of time. And when McCain talks I laugh as well because his platforms sound like Obama's, he just wastes money in slightly different ways.

Odd that everyone finds the goverment inefficient and wasteful, but look to it to solve their problems. I like it most when they talk about partisan politics being the reason for it. God forbid the congress ever stop fighting because they could do a lot more damage that way.

Ha, I love partisanship. They are too busy trying to screw the other party, they can't screw me.

I believe thread is refering to American politics. Any history book will do... The reason why socialism and communism want to tax people on everything from income to property is because they do want people to own anything. Individualism is not condusive to their Ideaology.

We already have term limitations for congress. They are called elections. The problem is that the citizens, in using their right to vote, choose not to limit the terms.

It is the choice of the voters that keeps these scumbags in office forever.

The income tax levied by Prime Minister Pitt was the firat income tax to be levied in the modern era (there are some ancient and medieval examples of similar taxes) anywhere, so thats why I brough it up. The US started levying income tax in the 1860's IIRC, again I doubt if any socialists were involved there either.

So your wrong the invention of income tax and indeed most taxes predate socialist political philosophy. In fact they are not the invention of communists but good old comservatives generally, William Pitt was a Tory.

Frankly, I can't be bothered countering your crude, sweeping generalisations about what communism or socialism is, at the moment (which BTW are also incorrect ;) ). That will have to wait for another time.

Usually, I find that those who are quick to label things as communist know very little about it.

I hate commies almost as much as i hate nazis...

To me there is no difference, unfortunately other one is still legal.

Again! This is refering to what led up to the revenue act HERE IN AMERICA, was not discussing Britain... :down: