Random Politics & Religion #00

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Random Politics & Religion #00
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:01:07
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They are saying his impressions of the characters are bad well no wonder he isn't a voice actor. I give him kudos for even trying. I'd like to see those arm chair critics do a good Mr Burns or Homer etc.
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By Ramyrez 2015-07-02 09:10:05
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I think if we're judging candidates' worthiness on their ability to imitate cartoon characters then we've got bigger problems.
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:11:15
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Ramyrez said: »
I think if we're judging candidates' worthiness on their ability to imitate cartoon characters then we've got bigger problems.

Yea like churches refusing to pay taxes. That will be a big issue in the 2016 election.
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By Garuda.Chanti 2015-07-02 09:13:52
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Now’s the Time To End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions
Time

Quote:
The Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage makes it clearer than ever that the government shouldn't be subsidizing religion and non-profits

Two weeks ago, with a decision in Obergefell v. Hodges on the way, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah introduced the First Amendment Defense Act, which ensures that religious institutions won’t lose their tax exemptions if they don’t support same-sex marriage. Liberals tend to think Sen. Lee’s fears are unwarranted, and they can even point to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion in Friday’s case, which promises “that religious organizations and persons [will be] given proper protection.”

But I don’t think Sen. Lee is crazy. In the 1983 Bob Jones University case, the court ruled that a school could lose tax-exempt status if its policies violated “fundamental national public policy.” So far, the Bob Jones reasoning hasn’t been extended to other kinds of discrimination, but someday it could be. I’m a gay-rights supporter who was elated by Friday’s Supreme Court decision — but I honor Sen. Lee’s fears.

I don’t, however, like his solution. And he’s not going to like mine. Rather than try to rescue tax-exempt status for organizations that dissent from settled public policy on matters of race or sexuality, we need to take a more radical step. It’s time to abolish, or greatly diminish, their tax-exempt statuses.

The federal revenue acts of 1909, 1913, and 1917 exempted nonprofits from the corporate excise and income taxes at the same time that they allowed people to deduct charitable contributions from their incomes. In other words, they gave tax-free status to the income of, and to the income donated to, nonprofits. Since then, state and local laws nearly everywhere have exempted nonprofits from all, or most, property tax and state income tax. This system of tax exemptions and deductions took shape partly during World War I, when it was feared that the new income tax, with top rates as high as 77%, might choke off charitable giving. But whatever its intentions, today it’s a mess, for several reasons.

First, the religious exemption has forced the IRS to decide what’s a religion, and thus has entangled church and state in the worst way. Since the world’s great religion scholars can’t agree on what a religion is, it’s absurd to ask a bunch of accountants, no matter how well-meaning. You can read part of the IRS’s guidelines for what’s a bona fide religion here; suffice it to say that it has an easier time saying what’s not a religion. The site gives the example of the rejection of an application from an “outgrowth of a supper club … whose primary activities were holding meetings before supper, sponsoring the supper club, and publishing a newsletter” but which professed a religious doctrine of “ethical egoism.”

On the other hand, the IRS famously caved and awarded the Church of Scientology tax-exempt status. Never mind that the Scientology is secretive, or that it charges for its courses; or that its leader, David Miscavige, lives like a pasha. Indeed, many clergy have mid-six-figure salaries — many university presidents, seven-figure salaries — and the IRS doesn’t trouble their tax-exempt status. And many churches and synagogues sit on exceedingly valuable tracts of land (walk up and down Fifth Avenue to see what I mean). The property taxes they aren’t paying have to be drawn from business owners and private citizens — in a real sense, you and I are subsidizing Mormon temples, Muslims mosques, Methodist churches.

We’re also subsidizing wealthy organizations sitting in the middle of poor towns. Yale University has an endowment of about $25 billion, yet it pays very little to the city of New Haven, which I (as a resident) can assure you needs the money. At the prep school I attended (current endowment: $175 million), faculty houses, owned by the school, were tax-exempt, on the theory that teachers sometimes had students over for dinner, where they talked about history or literature or swim practice.

Meanwhile, although nonprofits can’t endorse political candidates, they can be quite partisan and still thrive on the public dole, in the form of tax exemptions and deductions. Conservatives are footing the bill for taxes that Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit, doesn’t pay — while liberals are making up revenue lost from the National Rifle Association. I could go on. In short, the exemption-and-deduction regime has grown into a pointless, incoherent agglomeration of nonsensical loopholes, which can allow rich organizations to horde plentiful assets in the midst of poverty.

Defenders of tax exemptions and deductions argue that if we got rid of them charitable giving would drop. It surely would, although how much, we can’t say. But of course government revenue would go up, and that money could be used to, say, house the homeless and feed the hungry. We’d have fewer church soup kitchens — but countries that truly care about poverty don’t rely on churches to run soup kitchens.

Exemption advocates also point out that churches would be squeezed out of high-property-value areas. But if it’s important to the people of Fifth Avenue to have a synagogue like Emanu-El or an Episcopal church like St. Thomas in their midst, they should pay full freight for it. They can afford to, more than millions of poorer New Yorkers whose tax bills the synagogue and church exemptions are currently inflating.

So yes, the logic of gay-marriage rights could lead to a reexamination of conservative churches’ tax exemptions (although, as long as the IRS is afraid of challenging Scientology’s exemption, everyone else is probably safe). But when that day comes, it will be long overdue. I can see keeping some exemptions; hospitals, in particular, are an indispensable, and noncontroversial, public good. And localities could always carve out sensible property-tax exceptions for nonprofits their communities need. But it’s time for most nonprofits, like those of us who faithfully cut checks to them, to pay their fair share.
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By Ramyrez 2015-07-02 09:14:39
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Garuda.Chanti said: »
Now’s the Time To End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions

It was time decades ago.

Now it just ends up being another partisan bickering point.
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:14:45
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Garuda.Chanti said: »
Now’s the Time To End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions
Time
[/spoiler]

This is a day late and a dollar short. We covered this ***a million times already.

This is getting near gay wedding cake level of absurdity. Which is a new low.
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By Garuda.Chanti 2015-07-02 09:15:14
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Ramyrez said: »
I think if we're judging candidates' worthiness on their ability to imitate cartoon characters then we've got bigger problems.
You are right.

We should judge their worthiness on their ability to imitate human beings.
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By Ramyrez 2015-07-02 09:15:19
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fonewear said: »
This is a day late and a dollar short

Well if the *** churches had paid their taxes...
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:16:04
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Ramyrez said: »
fonewear said: »
This is a day late and a dollar short

Well if the *** churches had paid their taxes...

Touche !
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By Garuda.Chanti 2015-07-02 09:16:40
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fonewear said: »
Garuda.Chanti said: »
Now’s the Time To End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions
Time
This is a day late and a dollar short. We covered this ***a million times already.
Yeah but Time just covered it today.
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:16:43
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Garuda.Chanti said: »
Ramyrez said: »
I think if we're judging candidates' worthiness on their ability to imitate cartoon characters then we've got bigger problems.
You are right.

We should judge their worthiness on their ability to imitate human beings.

And when you aren't a human being you are a...human going !
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:17:35
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Garuda.Chanti said: »
fonewear said: »
Garuda.Chanti said: »
Now’s the Time To End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions
Time
This is a day late and a dollar short. We covered this ***a million times already.
Yeah but Time just covered it today.

Time stopped being relevant after the Big Bang occurred ! The moment existence started to exist !

That's a reference to Being and Nothingness by Sartre !
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2015-07-02 09:18:30
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What the U.S. needs is another round of quantitative easing.
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By Ramyrez 2015-07-02 09:19:25
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Leviathan.Chaosx said: »
What the U.S. needs is another round of quantitative easing.

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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:19:50
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Leviathan.Chaosx said: »
What the U.S. needs is another round of quantitative easing.

I'd like to buy the world a Coke !

Fill the world with hippie *** !

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By Ramyrez 2015-07-02 09:21:12
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fonewear said: »
I'd like to buy the world a Coke !

Fill the world with hippie *** !

Look, we all know what happened at the end of Mad Men. You're not convincing anyone you get *** the way Don Draper does just because you drink as much bourbon as he does.
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By Leviathan.Chaosx 2015-07-02 09:21:33
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It's all explained in this video:

Quantitative Easing Explained

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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:22:02
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I knew of that commercial before Mad Men though !

I don't need a TV show to get references !

I didn't even watch Mad Men. If Christina Hendricks wasn't in it I'd have zero interest.
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By Ramyrez 2015-07-02 09:22:55
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fonewear said: »
I knew of that commercial before Mad Men though !

I don't need a TV show to get references !

No, but I needed the television reference for my joke to work!

Now go drink your Old Grandad and fantasize about harassing secretaries.
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:23:37
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Some people won't let the 60's go much as the world has moved on...
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By Garuda.Chanti 2015-07-02 09:26:08
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fonewear said: »
Some people won't let the 60's go much as the world has moved on...
The '60s were great fun.

But if you can remember it all, you didn't really indulge.
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:26:17
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Don't worry we can always print more money ! We have the power !
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:27:17
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Garuda.Chanti said: »
fonewear said: »
Some people won't let the 60's go much as the world has moved on...
The '60s were great fun.

But if you can remember it all, you didn't really indulge.

I'm partial to the 90's good music flannel shirts. Hoping the world ends in 2000. A lot to look forward to !
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:28:40
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I found the national anthem for P and R:

We are all feeling together !

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By Ramyrez 2015-07-02 09:28:53
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fonewear said: »
A lot to look forward to !

We had so much hope!

If only we knew!
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:30:58
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I'm learning how to "master my emotions" I'm in emotional rehab !

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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:33:38
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My emotions told me to stop being a jerk ***. So I ignored it !

He spent 8 minutes basically saying nothing. He could work for Huff Post.
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:43:58
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Ramyrez said: »
fonewear said: »
A lot to look forward to !

We had so much hope!

If only we knew!

Hope no such thing as hope. Only a false hope. Keep your expectations low and you will never be disappointed !
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By Bahamut.Ravael 2015-07-02 09:44:21
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fonewear said: »
He spent 8 minutes basically saying nothing. He could work for Huff Post.

Only if he can manage to pull it off every single day. That's what makes Huff Post special.
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By fonewear 2015-07-02 09:46:57
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Bahamut.Ravael said: »
fonewear said: »
He spent 8 minutes basically saying nothing. He could work for Huff Post.

Only if he can manage to pull it off every single day. That's what makes Huff Post special.

Sometimes saying nothing is something !


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/
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