Well, it was a matter of necessity. Either the political system allowed many different sensitivities to get into the parliament or we'd keep killing each other in largely unnecessary civil wars.

If you can't figure out why though scifiboy... it boils down to one thing.

Progressive Taxation = Treating people differently.

Just like Rocketpig illustrated earlier in the thread.

You don't want to treat everyone equal.

You've just decided that "Rich vs Poor" is the group status you are attaching. With rich being the group you are attacking/predjudiced against.

If you truley believe humans can get to an eglatarian utopia everyone must be treated equally... and that means equally.

Things like Universal Healthcare can happen, but they've got to happen as a result of the community working for the common good. Not a small part of it that's easy to pick on.

Listen, what you say does not make them rights though. Those things aren't ours to give out, it's the goverments. Sure, I can see how it's the peoples to give out, since we pay the taxes and all, but if the goverment was corrupt they could just pocket the money, or use it tward other means.

Sure, the fact that we have education and healthcare (what little of it in america) is great. But should we expect to have them? Yes, considering the status of my country, but we should still be grateful that we aren't like those other "developing" countries that haven't had those things for a long time. And the way things are going, you can expect americans to not have anything that resembles a government to handle these things before long :P

Everybody should be grateful for what they have, and the fact that you referred to them as your rights, well it pissed me offa bit.

So basically, people are too spoiled

You could argue that in order for humans to get to an egalitarian utopia would require a breaking down of class barriers and the rich-poor divide being removed. Progressive taxation is a mechanism that does those things.

So while progressive taxation goes against the principle of egalitarianism it may be a step towards an egalitarian society, as strange as that is.

@Strategyking. We should be grateful that we have our rights, but that doesn't stop them being rights.

That's the Authortarian part.

It's also wrong.

As the people being taxed at a higher percentage will largely feel put opon... as they are being put opon... and the poor are taught the rich are greedy etc.  Hence people who make more money and are taxed progressivly are bad etc.

It also places central focus on the government to get things done so people look to the government to handle things, rather then everyone working for the good of the common man.

Instead, everyone works... and the government takes care of the common man.

This can be seen by the fact that more conservative people give more to charity.

If you were a starving person in the street, you would be more likely to get money to buy yourself something to eat from Dick Cheney then you would Al Gore... and that's saying something considering one of Dick Cheney's past times is shooting people in the face.

Progressive taxation never leads to the Utopian state because the people constantly need to lean on the government to make things right.  People never reach a stage where they actually believe everyone should be treated equal... instead it's just one group picking on another group to get what they want.  It's no different then anything else.

The true step right before an Utopian society that he's longing for is one in which the government exists... but it's taxes are paid soley by donation.  Such a society needs people willing to think of others nearly as much as themselves.  Such a society can not be gotten to by forceful means or unfair means as everyone will develop resentments.

And I'd argue that relying on the good of common man is stupid because the common man isn't good enough. In my opinion its impossible to reach a utopia where the poor are given a hand by the rich out of the good of their hearts simply due to the nature of mankind.

Maybe thats where our difference in views is.

Unless those rights aren't rights and are priviledges?

Then Utopia in your view is unreachable. 

Which is partly my point.  He believes it is reachable... yet acts in a way that prevents it from being reachable.

While you, like most liberals actually believe... is that people don't want to look after each other and largely have to be forced to be by the government via taxes.  People can never get to where they will.... so we must enforce it as so by progerssive taxation.

Most people agaisnt progressive taxation actually agree with you.  What they disagree with however is that government should enforce this... because governent is also run by people.... and it's not run by the most morally upright people or the smartest.  It's run by the comman men who want power a little more and are willing to go to extradonary ways to get there.

Where your opinion differs from mine however is that I believe in is that all people deserve to be treated equally and that things such as universal healthcare can in fact be achieved by treating everyone equally... the government just needs to be smart rather then target random groups for taxation so they can give deals to different people and buy themselves power. 

Flat taxation will make sure tax raises are only made when needed.  Rather then villifying different groups and items to get money.

People who no longer need to struggle and are largely unthreatened are more likely to give themselves to the thoughts of "higher pursuits".

Whether or not anyone could ever get to a stage where an actual Utopia exists is argueable.  However why not give it a chance in a way where everyone will be treated equally?

Rather then attempting a hand fisted force that has a chance to turn into a Dystopia whenever some extra ambitious polticians come into office and realize they control just about everything.

We don't need to force people to give more then their fair share to get things done.  That's just what politicans say because they don't want to make the hard decisions and instead want to just maintain their power base as long as they can.

You guys know that economies are generally more stable with progressive taxation than with flat taxes or regressive taxes right? There are plenty of reasons to justify progressive taxes from an economic standpoint.

Another is the amount of people's income that is disposable based on their income. Poor people have less overall money to spend. So they tend to save less money and spend a higher percentage of that income in the economy. The reverse is true for the rich. So in essence, a flat tax or regressive taxes would in many ways hurt the economy as much or more than it would help it.

We're talking morally... and also when it comes to the development of morals and to evolve people to a greater well being.

Not economically.

A flat tax is inherently morally superior.

When slavery was economically preferable it still wasn't morally ok.