Whats Fair When it Comes to Taxes?

[RedskinRat]

Originally Posted by saden1

It's not stats juggling if we are dealing in facts...and recidivism stats is pertinent regardless of whether the camp is open or closed.

So if the rates rose you'd agree that handling them with kid gloves at Club G wasn't the right approach? Rates of recidivism are higher now.

Originally Posted by saden1

I would hope someone who runs a business like GScud would understand that sometimes you have to do what is best not necessary what you think is right. I mean, what is the cost of combating one terrorist? I would bet it's a lot higher than 750K. From an investment standpoint 750K is nothing if it means you get a few of these guys to not to return to battle. Who knew soccer could save lives?

Shouldn't everyone strive to do what is best? Using that logic we should glean as much information on or near the battlefield, execute the terrorist and move on. That would save far more than money and lives. It wouldn't be as 'hearts and minds' but that's never won a war, has it?

Soccer (or appeasement) doesn't save lives, particularly in this situation, it makes our enemy believe we are weak. Same or similar to apologizing for burning a copies of a book that prisoners were using to pass information to each other.

[mlmpetert]

I order a lot of crap from Amazon. Thats going to change:

Amazon to Collect Sales Tax in Virginia - eBookNewser

Right now amazon only collects taxes for 5 states: Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Dakota, or Washington. That will likely increase, shortly.

I was so upset about this i emailed McDonnell. Amazon opens up distributions centers in VA and how do we repay them? F' McDonnell.

[mooby]

Originally Posted by mlmpetert

I order a lot of crap from Amazon. Thats going to change:

Amazon to Collect Sales Tax in Virginia - eBookNewser



I was so upset about this i emailed McDonnell. Amazon opens up distributions centers in VA and how do we repay them? F' McDonnell.

Lame.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by mlmpetert

I order a lot of crap from Amazon. Thats going to change:

Amazon to Collect Sales Tax in Virginia - eBookNewser



I was so upset about this i emailed McDonnell. Amazon opens up distributions centers in VA and how do we repay them? F' McDonnell.

I am a huge Amazon customer despite being a resident of their home state. They collect 9.8% of everything I buy and I have not been bothered by it. I will say this though, having lived in VA for six months last year I really enjoyed paying no sales taxes on my Amazon purchases.

The real issue though is how do you collect taxes in the era of the internet? One would think that if you setup shop in a state you should collect sales taxes on residents of the state that buy stuff from you. Remember, one of the reason states didn't enforce sales taxes on goods bought online was to spur growth in internet sales. Now we have reached a point where anything can be bought online and if you don't start collecting taxes you won't have much sales tax revenue to speak of pretty soon.

The rule is simple....if you have a presence and do business in the state of VA you pay and collect taxes. This is beyond fair and right.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by RedskinRat

So if the rates rose you'd agree that handling them with kid gloves at Club G wasn't the right approach? Rates of recidivism are higher now.

If it was that simple, I would say yes. But most of these guys can't be convicted because the evidence against them is so lacking. What you should be doing is be smarter about handling their release and monitoring them. Did you read the links in that article? When you are reading what Republican have to say it's important that you read and understand the fine print:

From The Director of National Intelligence:

As of 1 October 2010, 598 detainees have been transferred out of Department of Defense (DoD) custody at the U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO) detention facility [since the start of the wars up to Oct 2010 598 detainees have been released]. The Intelligence Community assesses that 81 (13.5 percent) are confirmed and 69 (11.5 percent) are suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities after transfer. Of the 150 former GTMO detainees assessed as confirmed or suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities, the Intelligence Community assesses that 13 are dead, 54 are in custody, and 83 remain at large.

On 22 January 2009, the President signed Executive Order 13492, calling for a comprehensive interagency review of the status of all individuals currently detained at Guantanamo Bay. Every decision to transfer a detainee to a foreign country under this review was made after a full assessment of intelligence and threat information. Since the implementation of Executive Order 13492 and under the enhanced interagency review process, 66 of the 598 detainees noted above have been transferred. Of those 66 individuals transferred since January 2009, 2 are confirmed and 3 are suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities [since Obama signed executive order two years ago they have released 66 and only 5 reengaged or suspected to have reengaged].

From The Department of Defense:

Based on a comprehensive review of available information as of mid-March 2009 the Defense Intelligence Agency reported 14 percent as the overall rate of former Guantanamo detainees confirmed or suspected of reengaging in terrorist activities. Of the more than 530 Guantanamo detainees transferred from Department of Defense custody at Guantanamo Bay, 27 were confirmed and 47 were suspected of reengaging in terrorist activity. Between December 2008 and March 2009, nine detainees were added to the confirmed list, six of whom were previously on the suspected list.

After reading the two reports it's pretty easy to detect what the GOP is doing. It appears that they are mixing two statistics, one from The Director of National Intelligence and the other from Department of Defense, and are trying to make it appear as though these two studies have strong Correlation with each other. In fact it's nearly impossible to conclude anything by combining these two studies and if you think you can and make sense of it I would love to hear your thoughts.

Originally Posted by RedskinRat

Shouldn't everyone strive to do what is best? Using that logic we should glean as much information on or near the battlefield, execute the terrorist and move on. That would save far more than money and lives. It wouldn't be as 'hearts and minds' but that's never won a war, has it?

Soccer (or appeasement) doesn't save lives, particularly in this situation, it makes our enemy believe we are weak. Same or similar to apologizing for burning a copies of a book that prisoners were using to pass information to each other.

What is best and what is right is subjective and temporal. You should strive for what is right first. Simply killing every suspected terrorist sounds like a great idea until you happen to kill innocent civilians. That is to say what is best should be the secondary option because what is right is not practical or in your long term interest.

Goldman Sachs for example does what is best. Of late what is best just so happens to be what's best for Goldman Sachs not what is right for its clients. Soon they won't have enough clients to do God's work.

[SirClintonPortis]

$750000 is small fry for the government, especially if it means the guards running the place also benefit from it, even if it's mentally than rather than monetarily.