They are all pretty much scumbags. Not even most environmentalists vote for the greens anymore as they are little more than an extension of the labor party, focused on short term thinking and power plays.

Greens an extension of Labor ? Now there's a chuckle.

Sounds like you get most of your political information from your local Rupertarian.

I'm sure a few hardcore greenies have abandoned the Greens as they slowly morph into a generalist centre-left social-democracy party, but their share of the primary vote has remained pretty constant for a decade or more.

If these people were actually conservatives, then they'd try to maintain the status quo, not introduce new controls, etc.

They are conservatives. They want to go back to the good old days of Feudalism.

Progressivism is how we escaped that history and created democracies, free speech, equal rights, and the like.

if the Five Eyes slurp it all up anyway? They already have access to these data, why bother making ISPs keep it too?

So it can be used domestically and legally.

This is about intimidating political opponents, whistleblowers and copyright infringers.

I like bias... they don't mention that the labor party all voted it through as well.

Of course they did. There's barely been daylight between Labor and the Coalition for 10+ years.

Greens only opposed it after they learned labor wouldn't [...]

Huh ? The Greens have opposed this from the get-go.

Hilarious. The only mainstream party opposed to the right-wing neoliberal authoritarianism that's been destroying the western world for decades, and they're "scumbags".

Hope you don't have any allergies shovelling that much straw around.

All taxes get paid by the people purchasing products and services.

Taxes are paid by those against whom they are levied.

Those entities may try and recover that cost elsewhere. They may or may not be successful in doing so.

If you tax only the rich, the poor will pay the differences.

So you don't think anyone will step in and provide equivalent products and services at a lower cost than established players because they're prepared to accept a smaller profit margin ?

Ie: markets don't work ?

There are plenty of rich people who don't own and run businesses, or have substantial income and wealth outside of their business interests.

and no, you cannot address that with any legislation because congress does not have the power to do so.

Firstly, the world is not America.

Secondly, even in the US, between local, state and federal Governments, they can legislate nearly anything they want to. If, of course, they want to. But there's been little interest in trying to build a better society since the neoliberal right took over the western world in the '70s and started pursuing the greatest wealth transfer from the

There is nothing there that could not be addressed with appropriate legislation.

And it's all completely irrelevant to the original claim that "all taxes are regressive".

Want to see real change and justice? Talk to the actual owners of Uber and see if you can convince them to make a better company.

Uber is run by libertarian psychopaths. Their thought process - though they would obviously never say it in public - is "nobody made you get into the taxi, tough luck".

Even the slightest voluntary attempt to try and ameliorate the risk involved would be an anathema - "nanny state regulation" or some such bullshit - to them.

Probably better because who can say how many cab drivers make it in via political favors?

Given the life and pay of a taxi driver, I'd go with "sweet fuck all".

People calling in "political favours" to be a *taxi driver* ? Did you even think about that before you wrote it ? Do you think garbage collectors get jobs through "political favours" as well ?

The problems in the taxi industries worldwide have nothing to do with regulations around safety, and everything to do with the regulations around taxi plates (or "medallions" I think they call them in the states).
Uber vehicles should be required to carry the same safety facilities as a taxi, including video/audio recording and driver duress buttons.
This sort of situation and the absurdly trivial solutions for reducing its risk (what's the cost of a few dash cams ?) were entirely predictable and the only reason Uber did not act proactively was because it's a company run by libertarian psychopaths who think rules shouldn't apply to them.

Global Warming is a theory. So is gravity. Are you worried about suddenly flying off into space ?

All the AGW models have failed, miserably.
If that were true it would not be getting hotter (or getting colder).
"It's not getting hotter as quickly as predicted, but it is getting hotter as expected" is not "miserable failure".

of course, its people who dont use X who always want to raise taxes on X
Similarly, the people who can easily afford the things taxes pay for are always in favour of eliminating them

And why I keep saying ALL Taxes are regressive. Please, tell me more about how a taxes that only targets the top 1%, 0.1% and 0.01% would be "regressive".

Yet my income is well below the poverty level, [...]
Then how do you afford the things you say you have ? Because a thousand bucks a month minus necessities like food and shelter, doesn't leave a lot left over to pay for iPads, big TVs and cars.
The rest of your post is just straw men and non-sequiturs.