> Okay, but he also believes that the income tax is unconstitutional. If he's able to get social security to go away it's likely he'd also eliminate the income tax.
X wants A.
X also wants B.
Therefore, if X gets A, X will also get B.
That doesn't work.
> Losing social security AND the income tax would likely be a net win for middle aged working folk like my parents.
Your analysis seems to be pretty shallow on this, particularly, it seems presume that the income tax can go away with everything else operating as is with no effect except taxpayers not paying the tax.
A world where Ron Paul gets elected president and/or gets any of his legislation passed is a substantially different world than the one we live in today. Hugely different.
If it were possible for the general population to somehow wake up and realize that Social Security is a ponzi scheme and that it's not sustainable long term (not good odds that will happen, mind you) then it's ENTIRELY conceivable that said people might listen to the "income tax isn't constitutional" argument as well.
The political landscape would have to be so incredibly different for social security to go away I can't even really comprehend it. You can speculate that people wouldn't both abolish social security AND the income tax. I speculate that such a thing could reasonably happen. We'll never actually find out who's right.
> A world where Ron Paul gets elected president and/or gets any of his legislation passed is a substantially different world than the one we live in today. Hugely different.
Sure, but the ability to build a minimum winning coalition on eliminating social security is pretty much irrelevant to finding a minimum winning coalition on eliminating income tax.
> If it were possible for the general population to somehow wake up and realize that Social Security is a ponzi scheme and that it's not sustainable long term
Its not possible for them to "wake up and realize" that because its not true, but its certainly possible for them to be convinced of that; indeed, that's a fairly common idea (at least, if you take out the "ponzi scheme" part) now. What is less common is the idea that the best way of dealing with that is to eliminate the program entirely rather than addressing features that make it nonsustainable. [1]
> then it's ENTIRELY conceivable that said people might listen to the "income tax isn't constitutional" argument as well.
Sure, its entirely conceivable that people might listen to that argument. That's a bit different saying that it is likely that he would also be able to eliminate the income tax (there is a big gap between "conceivable" and "likely" and another big gap between "listen to" and "agree with".)
> The political landscape would have to be so incredibly different for social security to go away I can't even really comprehend it.
I have no problem with that description, but that's an argument against any assertion you might make about what would be likely in that case, not an argument for it.
> You can speculate that people wouldn't both abolish social security AND the income tax.
I could, but I haven't. A statement that your claim that a particular outcome is likely is not supported by the argument you have presented for it is not a claim that the outcome is impossible.
> I speculate that such a thing could reasonably happen.
There's a difference between speculating that a thing "could reasonably happen" and asserting, as you did previously, that it is likely.
>> The political landscape would have to be so incredibly different for social security to go away I can't even really comprehend it.
>I have no problem with that description, but that's an argument against any assertion you might make about what would be likely in that case, not an argument for it.
You're basically arguing that the status quo is, and always will be, the predominant way of the world working unless a person can provide direct evidence to the contrary in a big way. I get that, and it makes a lot of sense. I generally feel the same way.
What I'm trying to suggest is that the world where social security gets eliminated is so different that your assertion that the status quo is, doesn't hold. You'll probably disagree with me on that issue but ultimately there's no way for us to know either way. It's all speculation. The evidence that I would give to support such a notion is that when serious political change happens, it often happens in a big way.
I think it's highly likely that the only way social security could get eliminated is some kind of a revolution, peaceful or not. Since there are so many people who currently benefit from social security right now having paid very little in (they like the program) and plenty of people who paid in their entire working lives (they desperately want to get their money out of it) that they constitute a large entrenched interest.
You're saying that the minimum amount of energy to get this 1000 ton rock moved from point A to point B doesn't imply that the other 1000 ton rock right next to it would go anywhere at all. I'm suggesting that for a rock that friggin huge to get moved there's some kind of bigger thing happening like a landslide, an earthquake, a big explosion, etc and thus, perhaps it might.
> You're basically arguing that the status quo is, and always will be, the predominant way of the world working unless a person can provide direct evidence to the contrary in a big way.
No, I am arguing that arguments of the form "if X occurs, its likely that Y will also occur" need to be justified by more than "X would take a radically different world, and Y occuring would be conceivably plausible in such a radically different world, therefore, it is likely that Y will occur if X occurs."
> What I'm trying to suggest is that the world where social security gets eliminated is so different that your assertion that the status quo is, doesn't hold.
I haven't made any such assertion. I have simply argued that you have failed to provide anything that remotely approaches support for you claim that it is likely that income tax would be eliminated if social security was eliminated.
> The evidence that I would give to support such a notion is that when serious political change happens, it often happens in a big way.
Even granting, arguendo, that point and your belief that social security takes a "revolution", that's not evidence in support of the likelihood of any particular currently-unlikely change being made possible by the situation that enables the elimination of social security.
> Since there are so many people who currently benefit from social security right now having paid very little in
The only people who have substantial SS benefits while paying very little in are the lower-earning surviving spouses of people who paid in and then died, so I think your premise here is a bit dubious.
> You're saying that the minimum amount of energy to get this 1000 ton rock moved from point A to point B doesn't imply that the other 1000 ton rock right next to it would go anywhere at all.
No, I'm not. A better analogy would be saying that I am rejecting the claim that the mere fact that it would take a quite substantial minimum energy to move the 1000 ton rock from point A to point be justifies a claim of the specific path a neighboring rock would be likely to take in the event the first rock was moved from point A to point B.
You haven't convinced me that I'm made some highly incorrect giant leap of faith in logic, and I clearly haven't convinced you that my ideas aren't outlandish. Thanks anyhow, though. It's taught me to be more specific in my arguments.
X wants A. X also wants B. Therefore, if X gets A, X will also get B.
That doesn't work.
> Losing social security AND the income tax would likely be a net win for middle aged working folk like my parents.
Your analysis seems to be pretty shallow on this, particularly, it seems presume that the income tax can go away with everything else operating as is with no effect except taxpayers not paying the tax.