It doesn't contradict my earlier statement at all. They shouldn't tax an inheritance at all. That's my position on this. 

Edit. 

To answer your question. Because it's the passing of their wealth from a dying family member to another or to a heir. It's not normal income so it shouldn't be taxed to the extent it is or at all. It's just my opinion. I consider it the same as thievery in a sense because it's not the community's money or the government's. 

On Bandorr's question:  Let me try again.  I think I see the disconnect. 
What do you define as "earning"?  Is it "receiving in any way, for any reason whatsoever"?  If a child inherits money from a dead parent, did the child earn it?  If not, does that affect whether it should be tax-free in your view if that child does nothing with the money and then dies, leaving it to their own children? 

On my question:  You completely failed to answer the question I posed.  Let me rephrase it.  Why do you think a tax collected after you DIE is more harmful than one collected in your own lifetime?  If taxes are to be collected at all, why isn't one that literally does not affect you in your entire lifetime the least harmful possible tax? 

Would you be in favor of abolishing the estate tax in a revenue neutral way—in other words, by raising taxes on other things to the same extent that the estate tax is eliminated? 

Liberals should be reserved to people that follow classical liberalism. I hate that the EUA made the term liberal be the left-wing synonym.

He's fixating on the kid "earning" his or her inheritance when I already explained my position but I'll answer the bolded questions for the sake of clarification. 

For (1) and (2) since my answer is similar. I consider earning to be acquiring money through any legal means. 

(3) Yes but it's not a matter of if the kid earned it or not because it's a gift of sorts from their dead parent to them. 

(4) Nope. I'm completely fine if that happened but I doubt that it would play out like that. 

I did answer your question but I didn't answer it in the way you wanted. To answer those new questions. Because I consider it immoral of the government to tax something as sacred as the parting gift of a parent to a child or heir. It doesn't matter if the person died, their choices regarding where their possessions or wealth would go should still be honored without the government trying to steal what's not theirs. If I decided to give my kid my car when I die, does that mean the government should get half of my car or any of it? No. The same thing applies to money that's meant as an inheritance. I just disagree with any sort of death tax or inheritance tax whatsoever. Normal taxes should apply when they choose to do something with what they inherited like sell it, buy something, etc. 

To the last question, nope. 

Okay, thanks for the answers.  I think Bandorr and most people do not mean what you mean when they consider the word "earn", but now that we understand each other it's mission accomplished.  Arguing over whose definition is "right" is an entirely different topic. 

(Before I reply to your position, a brief aside on whether you "answered my question but not in the way I wanted":  technically I suppose this is true, to the extent that your answer was (paraphrasing both my question and your answer) "An estate tax levied after you die is more onerous than an income tax, sales tax, or property tax levied while you are alive because it's not normal income and therefore taxing it is like thievery."  However this answer is indistinguishable from "just because" (it's worse than income tax because it's not income and taxing it is worse) and is worthless for the purposes of any kind of meaningful discussion.  Your new answer actually explains your position, for which I thank you.) 

I can't say I share your opinion of a gift from parent to child being a particularly "sacred" form of wealth transfer, but assuming for the sake of argument that that was the case then I don't see how your own stance regarding my final question can be morally correct.  I presume from your responses above that you are not morally opposed in principle to income taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes, since you have not mentioned any such thing when those were mentioned.  If I have mistaken your beliefs on that point, please correct me without delay.  Nevertheless, the following argument should, I think, be more or less valid even if you are simply less morally opposed to those taxes than the estate tax. 

Now, since there presently exists immoral goverment activity, why on earth would you not be in favor of replacing it with government activity that is not immoral?  If you just want to cut taxes, don't hide behind this cloak of moral opposition.  If what you are opposed to is the estate tax on principle, then I would think you would jump at the chance to abolish it, whether in a revenue neutral way or otherwise.  It's not like people haven't endured higher tax rates in the past.  Abolishing an immoral tax ought to be an issue separate from—and more important than—cutting taxes in general. 

Please explain yourself! 

After that, but only after that, perhaps we can have an interesting discussion on why you think the passing of wealth from one generation to another is more sacrosanct than the keeping of wealth that you yourself worked for. 

Hmm I figured that if I worded it as thievery instead of taxation that I was debating it from a moral stance and that I see it as a unethical practice then you would know the answers from that. I'm fine with normal taxes because they help fund the government and they are needed but because I view a death tax as a violation of something sacred and predatory of the governement that I'm against that tax in every form and there should be no replacement of it or workaround to create a different death tax.

I view this as just an immoral tax that should be done away with and has nothing to do with "cutting taxes" in general. That's a seperate issue entirely. I don't care about a replacement. It should be done away with. It's why out of all the topics people posted about in this thread that when I saw posts about the death tax, I felt compelled to pipe in (I didn't read alot of the posts in the thread to be honest). 

So when you said "Nope" in response to
"(paraphrased proposal:)  would you be in favor of abolishing the estate tax by way of replacing its revenue stream with other taxes?", I read it as
"I would not be in favor of this proposal."  I think that is a very reasonable way to interpret your answer.  However, I now understand your position to be
"I want the estate tax gone; revenue replacement in the form of other forms of taxes that are not any kind of inheritance tax is acceptable but not required.  I would favor that proposal because it involves getting rid of the estate tax but it should not be inferred that I would not be in favor of non-revenue-neutral abolishment of the estate tax, possibly even more so."  Correct? 

When I saw your reference to thievery I saw it as a variation on the "taxation is theft" mantra I hear from certain people, only that yours was specific to the subject of the estate tax.  Your motive was not clear to me at that time, but it is now.  By the way, that was why I was especially confused that you saw the estate tax as theft but not e.g. income taxes. 

Can you identify why the passing of wealth from one generation to another is more sacred than the passing of wealth from any person to another (i.e. employment, transactions, etc.)? or is it just an axiom for you that it should be completely untouched? 

It would depend on what you're talking about with "revenue replacement if I would agree with it or not. If you're talking about creating another tax for what was inherited then no, I wouldn't agree to it because it still goes against my position on this in principal. 

Because it's a situation where a loved one dies and passes on their material possessions to a living loved one or heir. I consider it a sacred rite of passage and it's obviously not a normal transfer of possessions between people or a normal transaction. If I work or run a business my whole life knowing that eventually I'll die, I would like to be able to pass on what I worked for to my children or heir unmolested by the government. 

Got another since my last was ignored. This is an abortion question.

If the birth will almost definitely kill the mother, is it okay to get an abortion in that scenario? Several factors can cause this to occur. So, I want an answer for after the fetus is 20 weeks in (I believe that's the cut off for many)

As someone who was formerly hard left who (temporarily) married into a hard right family, I'd like to think I have a pretty good understanding of what both the left and right think and where they come from.

The majority of the left wants equal rights for women and minorities, and for everyone to be "safe". Their failing is that many of their radicalized members alienate a rather large chunk of America: white cisgender males who refuse to be cucks. Another issue with the left is it's gradual profession into socialism, which is unsustainable as long as the military is the way it is. Many leftists like to point to heavily homogenized European ountries as proof that it works, directly conflicting with the notion that they stand for minorities and women.

Another big one is the defense of Islam, which directly contradicts most of their points. Islamophobia aside, traditional Muslim values just simply don't coincide with most left values. For a bit of anecdotal evidence, a friend of mine is a fairly recent transplant from Kurdistan. He was appalled as the public displays of emotion allowed in America, and moreso that open gays and transgenders weren't ironically in hiding. He's come to understand that they're people too since then, but has told me that he can't let his parents know he thinks that or they would take him back to Kurdistan and "punish him properly". I don't know about you, but that's terrifying to me. Not all Muslims are bad, but there are enough bad ones to warrant concern. In fact, recent polls in countries with high concentrations of Muslims has shown that more than half of the Muslims in the civilized world believe in honor killing for disgraceful/disgraced women. There simply is enough to be concerned about. As much as the right is concerned? No, but we have had significantly less Islamic terrorist attacks this year than Britain as a result.

And then gun control. Do people need semi-automatic rifles? No, a hunting rifle is all you need to take down game. Do you need one to defend yourself from a burglar? No, a pistol would do the job fine. But then comes the aspect that liberals laugh at; do you need a semi-automatic rifle to defend yourself from a tyrannical government? Yes. Is it a silly notion to believe governments go tyrannical? Not by a long shot. Every time a government has gone tyrannical in history, the first thing they do is disarm the populace. So imagine the right's righteous anger and fear when nearly half of the country believes we should willingly disarm to a serious extent, whereas a smaller but still massive portion believes complete disarmament. For all the Nazi name calling, it certainly is strange that the left wants to first do exactly what Hitler did about gun control.

And one final thing: abortion. I'm pro-choice, and my choice will always be to have the child. I believe in abortion as a choice, though... Early ones. Late term abortions are absolutely barbaric, and at that point you're not terminating a fetus, you are horrifically dismembering a small, unfinished child.



And where do I even start with the right? The racist alt-right, the complete disregard for the separation of church and state, islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, Reaganomics, TRUMP?! I mean, I don't even feel like discussing it is even necessary at this point. Practically the entire Republican party needs a reboot.

Centrist/Libertarians ftw.