[Drlee]

^^

Good points Nucklepunch.

I am a real conservative American. I have to endlessly distance myself from the utter stupidity of the points you just addressed. These are not the points of thinking people but rather those of a very shallow blowhards who not only do not understand economics but also completely understand our form of representative democracy. (And for the next ignorant fuckwad who wants to react, our republic is a form of representative democracy.)

I too am in the upper income brackets. I am more than willing to pay a bit higher taxes so that my country can benefit from it. I was also a soldier and the notion of sacrifice for ones country is not a strange idea to me as it obviously is to the person you were responding to. But you see, anyone who wants higher taxes is a Lib'ral or a comma'nust. If we reduced taxes to 1% for a year and then tried to raise them to 2% the next year these morons would be shouting how the lib'rals want to DOUBLE TAXES!

As to the hyper stupid question, "have you ever worked for a poor person". Next time tell this person to google "retail" and then google "customer". If he turns off Glen Beck for a week he might just put two and two togeather.

[Phred]

The problem is that the rich also want to make profit and will streamline jobs as much as possible and cut jobs where possible. The point is to make as much profit with as little cost as possible.

Of course. To do otherwise is just stupid.

The thing is that charity alone is not going to provide universal social safety nets.

Absolutely wrong. The lighter the tax burden, the more is available for charity.

I don't think every rich person gives to charity.

Me neither. So what? You do know that those who self-identify as Liberal give less to charity than those who self-identify as Conservative, I trust. Why do you think that is?

So believing in the social contract and wanting to give back a portion to the society which allowed you to become wealthy through protecting property rights means you are a hypocrite?

There is a gigantic and fundamental difference between giving some of your stuff and having some of your stuff seized against your will.

I'm sorry but nobody accumulated property in societies where there is no government.

And which Conservative here advocates eliminating government? Conservatives aren't Anarchists.



Phred

[nucklepunche]

As to the hyper stupid question, "have you ever worked for a poor person". Next time tell this person to google "retail" and then google "customer". If he turns off Glen Beck for a week he might just put two and two togeather.

But remember Lee, customers do not create jobs, the "job creators" create jobs. Remember, supply matters, not demand. Once you get into the idea that aggregate demand determines the health of business you start going down a road the inevitably leads to a Soviet Gulag.

Anyway, something tells me that the OP is not really a millionaire. Chances are he is a middle class or working class conservative who thinks that if only we did away with "Big Gummint" he would be rich like Bill Gates too.

[Drlee]

Anyway, something tells me that the OP is not really a millionaire. Chances are he is a middle class or working class conservative who thinks that if only we did away with "Big Gummint" he would be rich like Bill Gates too.

'Be my guess too. I don't know what happened. I was a Goldwater Libertarian/Buckley conservative, Nixon Internationalist with 40 years in the Republican Party (Arizona which is big "R" Republican) who shouted Ye'ha when I voted for Reagan over Carter. All of a sudden I woke up and real conservatives like me were running from the Neo-cons as fast as our pin-striped legs could carry us. It is kinda like an earthquake. Everything is wrong and there is nowhere to run to. The tea party people have snagged the dumbass under-educated angry white guys, the religious conservatives have teamed up with the neo-cons and the so-called libertarians will be a real threat as soon as they are old enough to vote. Meanwhile Fox News is dictating the national agenda at the behest of the only Australian who doesn't drink enough beer.

It is, as the King of Siam used to say, a puzzlement.

[Arkady2009]

Liberals don't hate rich people. Its just the fact that while some families have to scrape together all their spare change to pay the bills, or put food on the table while some rich snob gets driven around in his air conditioned car while watching his state of the art wide screen TV.

There is a lot of poverty in the US. The rich are oblivious to it. It would seem that the OP is, too.

[Kman]

I too am in the upper income brackets. I am more than willing to pay a bit higher taxes so that my country can benefit from it. I was also a soldier and the notion of sacrifice for ones country is not a strange idea to me as it obviously is to the person you were responding to.

Well dont let Congress stop you from being a good person, here is the address that you can send your extra taxes too:

Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D
Hyattsville, MD 20782

[Phred]

Liberals don't hate rich people. Its just the fact that while some families have to scrape together all their spare change to pay the bills, or put food on the table while some rich snob gets driven around in his air conditioned car while watching his state of the art wide screen TV.

So the emotion involved is not hate, but envy?



Phred

[Drlee]

Well dont let Congress stop you from being a good person, here is the address that you can send your extra taxes too:

Kman. Do you really think that was smart or cutting? You really need to try and make an argument or just stay out of it.

[nucklepunche]

the so-called libertarians will be a real threat as soon as they are old enough to vote.

In that case we've only got fifteen years left. Or do they just act like three year olds?

That being said, Lee you hit the nail on the head. Goldwater would have been a damn commie if he had been around today. Yes he was a fiscal conservative but he was also a pro-choice, socially liberal, environmentalist. Don't even get me started on Nixon, he founded the EPA, which in spite of having been incredibly successful in cleaning up the environment over the past four decades is now opposed by conservatives. Of course if the Cuyahoga River can't periodically catch on fire, then what freedom do we have left?

[Meta777]

"Liberals don't hate rich people. Its just the fact that while some families have to scrape together all their spare change to pay the bills, or put food on the table while some rich snob gets driven around in his air conditioned car while watching his state of the art wide screen TV."
So the emotion involved is not hate, but envy?

If someone wants good for themselves at the expense of another, then yes, its envy.
If on the other hand, someone wants good for the country, then that's patriotism.

-Meta

[Arkady2009]

So the emotion involved is not hate, but envy?

Its not necessarily envy, although some people probably would be envious of those more fortunate. It is just unfair that while people are starving, the rich are driven around in their cars, reside in huge mansions and want tax cuts. They don't seem to give a hoot about those less fortunate.
The more money people have, the more selfish they become.

[nucklepunche]

Its not necessarily envy, although some people probably would be envious of those more fortunate. It is just unfair that while people are starving, the rich are driven around in their cars, reside in huge mansions and want tax cuts. They don't seem to give a hoot about those less fortunate.
The more money people have, the more selfish they become.

Like Rawls I believe that inequalities should be arranged so that they benefit those at the bottom the most. I'm not suggesting communism since it may make them poorer than now, but still we certainly are not there. There is something wrong with a nation that has homeless people and entire tracts of large, empty suburban houses. There is something wrong with a nation where children go to bed hungry when hundreds of tons of food are thrown into landfills daily. There is something wrong with a country where some people can shell out thousands on boob jobs and nose jobs and a man in Ohio dies of a toothache because he didn't have health insurance (this happened, look it up). There is something wrong with a country where people must wait in the snow for shoddy public transit because they cannot afford a car, while some have collections of Rolls Royces. There is something deeply wrong with a country that has an abundance of goods, more than human beings can even reasonably consume, yet has an economic system based on scarcity that deliberately withholds goods from large chunks of the population. This is what is wrong. If we lived in a third world country that would be one thing, because then there would not be enough to go around, but we do not. We live in a society of abundance and yet we have poverty. Inequality can be justified in some situations, but the burden of proof lies on those at the top end of society to justify existing inequalities, NOT on the poor. I don't care if some people have a Rolls Royce while others have Hyundai. However, if there is poverty amid abundance then there is a problem and I do care about it. This must be dealt with by any means necessary, if it means private charity it means private charity, if it means government it meas government. If you are rich and you don't like the fact that you pay taxes to succor those who suffer under our scarcity based economy, then tough shit. We're going to make you pay whether you like it or not. We need to seriously look at the justifiability of a scarcity based economic system in a society where technology has achieved abundance in terms of basic human needs. The justification for capitalism lies at the feet of those who have been made rich by it. It is their burden, not mine, and they are failing.

[CounterChaos]

Show me one example of a stateless society above the hunter gatherer level and I will eat my own shoe.

Will that be a Nike or a Reebok? The Inuit - they are a stateless society that has progressed beyond the hunter gatherer stage............
Link

[nucklepunche]

Will that be a Nike or a Reebok? The Inuit - they are a stateless society that has progressed beyond the hunter gatherer stage............

New Balance.

And the Inuit seem to be involved in a lot of hunting, if they live the traditional way. Most are, and this saddens me, now dependent on the US government. Granted the traditional Inuits have no private property. I think perhaps I should revise my challenge to libertarians, show me a stateless society that has progressed beyond the hunter gatherer state AND has private property. The Inuits are questionable.

[Phred]

They don't seem to give a hoot about those less fortunate.
The more money people have, the more selfish they become.

And how does this harm poor people? If Jennifer Aniston (for example) lived in a bungalow in suburban Boise rather than a mansion in Los Angeles, how many more dollars would a single mother living in the Baltimore housing projects gain?



Phred

[Drlee]

And how does this harm poor people? If Jennifer Aniston (for example) lived in a bungalow in suburban Boise rather than a mansion in Los Angeles, how many more dollars would a single mother living in the Baltimore housing projects gain?

It depends on how we spent that money. If it were taxed more and the income used to help single mothers in Baltimore then the answer is in the question.

There is no doubt the idle wealth does not benefit anyone but the person holding the wealth. None.

[Phred]

It depends on how we spent that money.

What money? Aniston's money? Why do "we" get to spend it? It isn't ours. It's hers. We have the right to persuade her to spend her money in a manner of which we approve. We certainly have no right to take it from her if she chooses not to.

There is no doubt the idle wealth does not benefit anyone but the person holding the wealth. None.

If it's idle, by definition it doesn't benefit even that person, but let's ignore that. The point is that Aniston's mansion isn't harming anyone. A goatherd in Burkina Faso wouldn't have gained a new pair of sandals had Aniston chosen to live in a three bedroom bungalow in suburban Arkansas.



Phred

[Drlee]

We have the right to persuade her to spend her money in a manner of which we approve. We certainly have no right to take it from her if she chooses not to.

And you repeat this ad nauseum. We DO have the right. It has been tested by all of our courts and confirmed. It is confirmed by all of our legislatures and by the overwhelming voice of the people. You can contine to make this obscure assertion until the cows come home but it changes nothing. Until you can convince the vast majority of Americans that they should not have the right to tax their fellow citizens to provide for the general welfare your words are meaningless.

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
C. S. Lewis

[Phred]

We DO have the right.

Ah... but we don't.

It has been tested by all of our courts and confirmed. It is confirmed by all of our legislatures and by the overwhelming voice of the people. You can contine to make this obscure assertion until the cows come home but it changes nothing. Until you can convince the vast majority of Americans that they should not have the right to tax their fellow citizens to provide for the general welfare your words are meaningless.

You continue to base your entire political philosophy on the faulty argument that since the majority has agreed that governments must be funded, and that traditionally this funding has been accomplished through taxation, tax dollars may therefore be spent on anything in any amount. The conclusion does not logically follow.




Phred

[Drlee]

^^

This is an endless argument on your part. The FACT is that I do not maintain that the government may be spent "on anything in any amount" and your continued hyperbole is not helping us take you seriously. I DO maintain that the government has the right to levy taxes and spend the money for whatever they choose to the extent the people acting through their elected representatives give them the right to do so.

I utterly reject the notion that an individual has any practical right that is not given them by those same people. This would include the right to be exempt from some tax. The traditional aspect of my argument is simply to remind you that my position has been supported by generations of Americans. And that does, in fact, make it right under our form of government.

If you want a different form of government you need not convince me. You need to convince about 3/4 of the American people. Good luck with that.