scout...your anecdotes just dont work for me.

By most measures, the vast majority of people on welfare, food stamps and other social service programs dont abuse the program and in fact, utilize such programs for a relatively short period of time.

Its what a government does for its citizens most in need....unless you know of a democratic government anywhere or anytime in recent history that did not provide such a social safety net.

Stop by anytime and see it for yourself, we'll throw a slab of meat on the grill and have a beer while we watch the customers visit the neighborhood nuisance.

the people in your neighborhood don't sound like they're living it up. First off, they live in a trailer park. Secondly, any "luxury" items they have were probably paid for by their drug money, not their government checks. let's not pretend they're getting $40k/year from the government. this is a joke.

Perhaps you could stop by my house. We used to be on food stamps because we didn't have enough money to buy formula for our daughter (breast feeding wasn't an option). Now we're not anymore, and I'm about 7 months away from having a BME with an honors-eligible GPA.

We didn't want to be on public assistance, but we ended up on it because we needed to be. We had the option of being on public assistance, so I didn't have to quit school to get a full time job. Theoretically, my future contributions to society will more than make up for the half a year where the government stole your hard-earned money and fed my baby with it. This is the social safety net working as it should.

Where is the money?

edit


The Tax Breakdown Project 2008

Your portion of the tax burden.
Your Tax Burden Calculator



BREAKDOWN OF INCOME AND TAXES PAID BY CATEGORY
Income Category 2004 AGI Percent of all income Percent of income taxes paid
Top 1% Over $328K 19% 37%
Top 5% Over $137.5K 33% 57%
Top 10% Over $99.1K 44% 68%
Top 25% Over $ 0K 66% 85%
Top 50% Over $30.1K 87% 97%
Bottom 50% under $30.1K 13% 3%
Source: IRS

Sorry it isn't a mobile home park, although there is a few scattered about. I live in a county where there isn't any zoning so you can pretty much do what you want with your property. And while some of their luxury items may come from drug money, why should I as a taxpayer be responsible for any of their upkeep?
-----Added 23/10/2008 at 06 : 19 : 50-----
And you know what I don't have a problem with that whatsoever. I absolutely don't begrudge or hold that against you at all. Not one single iota. If you need it for a short time to get out of a bind that's what it's there for and I'm more than happy to help or to contribute my fair share. That's why we pay taxes and it's nice to see it work the way it's supposed to. Your right that's exactly the way it's supposed to work. It's not supposed to be a lifestyle. Hell I've seen people that although they was living together and they had several kids between them wouldn't get married because they/she would lose their/her government assistance when his income got added to hers. What's up with that? And while I think most people receiving assistance truly needs it and isn't taking advantage of the situation there's enough fraud in the rural county I live in to really piss a person off.

I still haven't heard scout's solution to the "problem". We get it, you're unhappy that some people in your neighborhood are working the system....so what's the fix?

A resource based economy. As long as the current monetary system exsists in the world this debate will never end.

Here's the thing. Scout agrees that the is a good side to the social safety net when he sees filtherton's situation. However, he has a problem with those who fraudulently abuse the system.

It seems to me that we are talking about two different things here. On the one hand, using tax money to support those in our society who need a leg up or a hand out is OK. Those who break the law are not OK.

Why throw the baby with the bathwater? Deal with crime the way all crime is dealt with... via the criminal courts and or the law.


To those who don't like paying taxes... what exactly is the issue? How else are the roads going to get repaired. How else can you afford to pay for the wars so many of you support?

Government is supposed to be by the people, for the people. Think on that a bit before you go all selfish libertarian on us...

is there some sense of neighborhood pride or something that is keeping you from reporting your neighbors to the authorities, scout? why complain on a message board when you can go get them arrested for fraud?

OK, i was harsh, but what i was doing was turning the rhetoric of personal responsibility on someone who is more accustomed to voicing it than hearing it applied to himself. That my comment was perceived as a personal insult suggests to me that the rhetoric of personal responsibility would be taken that way by the people it's being used against elsewhere in the thread. Where are we on that?

the fact that his anecdote is BS comes to mind

Whatever.

i am not sure that it makes much sense to think about redistribution of wealth inductively, from particulars to the general. you have to go the other way around, from some conception of the social system, its economic components, the interactions between them and what distributions of wealth/allocations of resources best enable that system to be coherent, more or less just, more or less able to provide something beyond libertarian barbarism for its inhabitants.

Well said, rb.

What's distressingly absent from this thread are reasonable arguments for what I assume would be the abolishment of the redistribution of wealth, and also a description of what would be in its place.

Somehow all I can picture is social Darwinism redux and feudalism 2.0.

Someone please enlighten me.

roach, I think it's the definition of "just" that's at issue with a lot of people, myself included. Most people understand that capital projects like roads, military, etc. are a function of government and must be paid for with some sort of tax base (some previous posters notwithstanding). I think that the Libertarian ( and old school Conservative) train of thought is that what is "just" is based on personal effort, not need. You get what you earn, not what you lack. Marx told us to provide to each as his need, but it never worked out that way, did it?

I suppose the issue then is, what is just. Should we have a social safety net such as Universal Healthcare, Unemployment Insurance, Public Education, Welfare, etc. Or should we support a system that enriches the few at the expense of the many?

As always, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. It always does.

The balance between Freedom and Equality is only difficult to achieve when faced with human greed.

What you're going to hear about "just," from a Conservative, is that a safety net is obligatory from the government for those that cannot provide for themselves. Clearly this includes children that are brought into the world by those who can't or won't take care of themselves or their children. It also includes those who are victims of things like autism, Down's, etc. It also includes those who might be hurt on the job.

Where you get an argument is providing a "safety net" as a long term lifestyle for those who don't care to work.

I have no issue with paying taxes to provide for a strong military. I have no issue with paying for Interstate highways. I seriously begrudge every penny sent to the lower wards in New Orleans, or the inner city in Detroit.

I'm pleased to contribute to equal opportunity; free education for all. But ask to "distribute" some of my earned income to a freeloader, then you'll have a struggle on your hands. Is this Social Darwinism?

So your complaints come down to the old saw of "welfare cheats" or "welfare queens".

Again, this seems like a legal matter than a systemic one. Fraud is fraud.

the term just is one way to frame the matter. you could also say which system is most coherent from a business viewpoint--which is most stable (long term prospects), most inclusive (widest consumer base), most healthy (more likely to buy more commodities)...or you could argue from the viewpoint of which system operates at the greater distance from the social jungle, which enables capitalism to provide better lives for the greatest number-but you know, in reality, not in horatio alger land---or which system is the more just. but each of these categories will point you at different features.

one could say, for example, that a system that is highly stratified on class lines as is the us cannot possibly be a just society unless and until it makes its educational system into one that is not a direct mirror of the class order---rich towns, good schools; poor towns shittier schools---because this arrangement inflicts the consequences of class on children and in the process provides a radically "uneven playing field"---a metaphor i hate---from the outset.

if education and opportunity are unevenly or unequally distributed, then the "you earn what you should make" arguments head out the window because they presuppose equality of access to competences, to opportunities, etc. in the present american system, there is no such equality--nor is there much interest in bringing the educational system closer to it from the right. vouchers etc are far more about breaking unions that providing good education to all...but that's another matter,

Capitalism requires a pool of under or un-utilised labour. This has been known for a long time...

When the pool becomes too large, revolutionary air. When the pool becomes too small, wages rise, profits decrease and companies go bust.

Those 'lazy' people are a functioning, necessary part of the capitalist system.

Social security and healthcare systems exist to pacify a large portion of that un/under-utlized labour force in a country.

KTHXBYE

"Capitalism requires a pool of under or un-utilised labour. This has been known for a long time..." Known by whom? Please explain how Capitalism requires under-utilized labor.

the easiest way to see this is via marx. i'll do this before i head out for a fine malted beverage---now i know that you probably see "marx" and say something like "ew..communism"--but if you do that, then you haven't read any of his work--there are basically two sides to it, one the critical description of capitalism in the middle 19th century, and another which was a revolutionary politics. the second follows from the first, relies on the first, is oriented by it---and that part of marx is really pretty amazing stuff. in the mid 19th century, the most advanced industry in terms of becoming-capitalist was textiles--what made capitalism itself for marx was the logic of mass production, which entails a standardization of outputs, a standardization and deskilling of work, and a series of attending separations--of aspects of a single task (in a craft setting) into multiple tasks, the separation of skill from workers via technology, the separation of workers from each other, the separation of ownership from production etc..

these separations are expressed in wage labor, which for marx tended toward a situation in which entirely deskilled workers sold their physical ability to perform a particular (ususally repetitive) task to the holders of capital in exchange for a wage. because the work is standardized, and because of the machinery that enables that, workers become more or less interchangable with one another. that turned out to be increasingly the case across the 19th and into the mid 20th century--he was writing before the development of the assembly line, but the logic he outlines makes the assembly line seem almost inevitable (but it wasn't---that's another story)...

anyway, the main advantage of mass production is lots and lots of cheap standardized goods. the effect of this--eventually (it wasn't automatic) was the destruction of an entire system of smaller-scale production of textiles--you know, spinning, weaving etc.---there are other factors that condition the outcome, and marx talks about them (but i won't because this is a messageboard and things have to be short-ish)--but anyway a result of this was the transformation in relations between city and countryside and a migration of people from the latter to the former in search of a way to make a living because the older systems of producing textiles and stuff based on them cheaply (it was poorer folk who were really hit by all this) were wiped out (again, there's more to this story). anyway, the result of this effect was the migration of far more people into the cities than there were jobs. the result of that was the formation of the "industrial reserve army" which functioned to push down wages and keep them down. the result of this was inhuman living conditions...just brutal stuff...which is why working people had to organize themselves---and which is still why working people have to organize themselves if they want any meaningful power. they have to take power away from capital.

this story amounts to a pattern, and that pattern has repeated in sector after sector over time, and this is the general explanation for how it came about that capitalism came to rely on the industrial reserve army as a way of forcing down wages.

the counter to this was political and trade-union organization.
it still is, but not in the forms that were developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, simply because these forms are themselves played out and because the geography of capitalist production is very different now than it was in the 1860s.

that's the idea.

If you haven't had the wherewithal to go look into this and point out specific ideas, theories and history that back up the idea that "Unemployed people are lazy". Which is an utterly repugnant, divisive reactionary opinion that reeks of a person either running from a poor background and had luck, or has NO IDEA what it is to be poor... then... yeah.

To demand proof from those who set out simple, well demonstrated - historically and theoretically - concepts that have been around for almost 200 years... well. yeah.

Marx
Keynes
Capitalism
Marx, Keynes on unemployment

to the recent posts:

i have no expertise in macro-economics, so please correct me if i'm wrong, but...

even if you accept the theory that capitalism necessarily entails underutilization of labor, i don't understand why that would lead to a conclusion that those people who aren't employed aren't lazy. the current unemployment figures hover around 5%. seeing as how many people who do have jobs are lazy-asses, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the 1 in 20 people who don't have jobs are the laziest of the lazy. assuming that there must always be unemployed persons wouldn't contradict the observation that those who are unemployed tend to be lazy.

just checked - the employment figures in my home-state are pretty close to national averages... i see plenty of "now hiring" signs in stores that probably pay 7-10/hr for entry-level work. that's not much money, but surely it's as much as you'd receive sitting at home cashing a welfare check.

***********************************

to the discussion in general:

something i haven't seen discussed in this thread is the argument from "goodness" that seems to discount the moral value of wealth redistribution. there is something morally debilitating about the concept. it takes what is otherwise done out of charity and generosity and instead forces someone to gives to another through threat of imprisonment (which is exactly what happens when you don't pay your taxes). government, then, preempts good. redistribution destroys pity, mercy, humbleness and grace. it takes all that is admirable and noble about helping your fellow man and makes it function of the state. the state co-opts these values by taking them from each person and making the state an agent of violence should anyone withhold their wealth from the state's righteousness-by-fiat.

In response the OP.
If you have a drug conviction, you can't get a home loan or a school loan. For a lot of kids coming out of school, entry level jobs are scarce and pay little. Things have changed a lot in the last 10 years with illegal emigrants working jobs for less money and Wal-Mart paying crap to employees that used to work at good paying stores before they were run out of business.

I don't think people want a check. People want opportunity, and that will take money. I for one would like to see music that's targeted at kids glorifying education and hard work.

In a lot of cases, it doesn't take that much money. Someone just needs to give a crap.

Prisons are an industry and they need customers. They have lobbyist too you know.

The unemployment rate is high, yet the employment section of any Sunday paper is loaded with jobs. How much of the time or what percentage would you think it's about what people are willing to sacrifice?

I personally hate when someone approaches me with Amway. It's not what I want to do. However, if I or anyone was 100% intent in creating financial liberty they could do it through Amway, McDonalds, or even digging ditches.

Ok, I wasn't going to get involved in this discussion, and I still don't intent to write a windy post, but something is bugging me:

Several times already the term "Anarcho-Capitalist" has been used to describe people on this board who espouse the opinion that they can make better decisions about how to spend their money than the government can.

A LOT of people just want to be left alone and not harrassed. They want to seek or their fortunes and happiness as best they are able without interference from others telling them what they can do and how they have to spend their money.

That's not Anarcho Capitalism, it's simply Capitalism. I am sick and tired of the 'renaming game' where people attach negative labels to every position they do not agree with while artificially nice and lofty titles to their ideals.

I have been to the Dunedan's house many times, and I can vouch for the indescribable level of poverty....and laziness in his neighborhood. I can also attest that he works very, very hard for not a whole lot of money because his family is too proud to live off the efforts of others. They run a full farm, with a small firearms business in the house. He gets up early, works all day and rarely has time to come into town for a piece of Pizza. He is living the way he wants to, and because he wants to be responsible for his own well being and financial situation he is making hard decisions and going without many things which many people take for granted. How many of the people on this board who espouse wealth redistribution and 'equality' are voluntarily 'sharing' all the money they make over the poverty limit with people living below it? Anyone? Then why on earth would you tell me I have to give up my money if you are not willing to set the example?

On Saturday, I went to the barber shop to get a haircut (one of those choices which allow me to remain employed...maintaining a presentable appearance) and I noticed a man begging for money (not begging for a job, or even food, but money). He seemed pretty spry, so I talked to him briefly, and he told me that he wasn't handicapped in any way, and he seemed coherent enough. He also told me he lived in a trailer, so he had access to a shower. I asked him why he was begging and he told me he couldn't find a job. I asked him why he was filthy when he had a place to live where he could wash them before looking for a job. He didn't have an answer. Then I asked him whether he had tried Able Bodied Labor which is a day labor place located only a few doors down and he also said no. I was astonished, not only was this guy perfectly capable of working, he was begging outside a day labor facility which would give him a means to make an honest buck or two. But instead we should make sure people like this one are at or above the poverty line?

After Katrina, there were jobs aplenty in New Orleans. Factory owners were offering free housing and double or triple pay for anyone to come work for them. Fast food restaurants were offereing signing bonuses of several thousand dollars. Construction companies were hiring as many people as they could find due to the enormity of the clean up process. Migrant workers were flooding to New Orleans en masse because they knew there were plenty of good jobs available. However, thousands of people were content to sit on their asses in their FEMA trailers/hotels across the country complaining about their poor fate and that they would support themselves....if only they could find jobs.

Where has the idea of personal responsibility gone? When Donald Trump was asked on some TV show what he would do if he suddently found himself on the street with no money, he replied somethign to the effect of: "I would find the nearest multi-level marketing company and would get to work"

any form of taxation is wealth redistribution. nothing Obama or any other politician is proposing is new, radical, or revolutionary.

any wealth that is being spread around is moving from the very rich to the very poor. the GOP has done an amazing job convincing the middle class that the Dems want to take their money and give it to the poor. it's simply not true

You left out the part when the audience started laughing with his response "Thats why Im up here and you're down there". There are some people here that seem to think Trump should be the last person to give anyone financial advice.:confused:
-----Added 27/10/2008 at 07 : 21 : 05-----

My opinion exactly. At least in the form of income taxation. Its a shame or sham to only see 2 candidates debating.

They take advantage of the same kind of visceral reaction that salespeople do when they use the "You must call within the next 30 seconds" bit. If you convince people they are about to lose something they tend to clamor for it, even if they aren't really losing it.

McCain is hoping that people get so caught up in the idea that "Obama is gonna take my hard earned money" that they never get to the point of actually looking into whether he will or not.

Filtherton: Of course they do. However, I don't believe they do so any more than the democrats pander the "Free shit for everyone" platform.

For instance: There is no possible way Obama can fund healthcare for everyone without taking more money out of my pocket and giving it to someone else in the form of health benefits. All those social programs and tax cuts for those people who just need a hand? More money out of my pocket. Want to raise taxes on corporations? Guess who the buck gets passed to: Me, the consumer which means more money out of my pocket. The republicans are bad also, but by putting one party in charge of the whole government you are giving them a blank checkbook with very little preventing them from declaring "free bread and circuses for everyone!"

The division from reality that someone demonstrates in believing that Amway, A PYRAMID SCHEME, can lead to financial independence, is quite astonishing.

America. The creature of extremes, you never fail to produce the beautiful, fascinating, ridiculous and terrible... frequently in the same moment.

I haven't noticed any promises of "free shit for everyone" on behalf of any Dem campaigns; it seems like more of an extension of what I mentioned above.

You can be pretty sure that if it weren't for the government taking money out of other people's pockets you wouldn't have as much opportunity to make the money that's being taken from you. When used effectively, taxation increases opportunity.

this can be correct only in the most technical sense... when taxes are paid to maintain a military, everyone's defense is enhanced. when taxes are used to build highways, all can use them for transport. when taxes light neighborhoods lampposts, no one walks in the dark.

but, when you use taxes for social entitlements as obama advocates you're dealing with something fundamentally different. when obama taxes my paycheck to provide healthcare to those who haven't earned it, i'm LESS able to pay for my own family's care. when obama taxes my paycheck to subsidize college education for those who haven't earned it, i'm LESS able to pay back my own loans.

the difference between the two taxation schemes differs philosophically. the first is designed around mutual benefit. the second is designed around taking from one group by threat of imprisonment solely for the benefit of a second group who manages to elect someone willing to enforce their desires. the first is constitutional. the second is not.

i don't think it's that they (the GOP) have convinced the middle class that THEIR money will be appropriated for the poor... i think it's that many middle class persons (rightfully!) object to ANYONE'S money (including that of wealthy persons) being taken from one person and given to another via government decree.

but that's not what he's proposing. at least not directly. there isn't going to be a "stuff for poor people" tax.

But speaking of earning things, what has someone like, say, Pris Hilton done to "earn" her money? should she be penalized in some way for not having earned her health care or opportunity for education? (I'm not saying she should, but it's amazing that Republicans throw the "elitist" term at liberals while looking down their noses at those with less opportunity than themselves"

Amway resembles a Pyramid Scheme in some ways, but is different in one very important aspect: It actually sells product. The hierarchy is based on the success of the salesperson and is thus capitalism at work.

Would I want to work for them? Not so much as most people who try it walk away with less than they started with, but for some who are dilligent enough, it works out.

Amway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll say that when I was very, VERY poor, I looked into Amway.

It's a kind of half-way house between a cult and a pyramid scheme, just far enough away from both to escape prosecution. Still, average earnings of less than $100 dollars per month... Just in case your arithmetic is rusty, the vast majority of people earn less, _much less_ than any mean average on a standard bell curve.

The vast majority of the Amway's consumers are its sales people/victims.

It's one of these things that exist on the letter of the law, not its spirit.

Amway 'works' as a route to financial independence for something significantly less than 1 in 1000 people. Hardly a route to financial independence. Most of the other adverts you'll see in your local paper 'full of ads' will be for fly-by-night or ridiculous other 'employers' looking for people to sell all manner of insane ideas and goods, commission only.

A cheap/free ad in a newspaper to bring in 100 desperate people, 10 of whom may actually be desperate enough to try your crazy scheme and 1 in 100 of which might ever make some money from it... pff..

Ignorance is bliss.

EDIT:

What was the mantra again...???

Oh yeah! Free Enterprise Works! Come to the convention! Hear Arnold Schwarzenegger talk! You can do anything and be anything you dream of!

Fantasists one and all.

that's not so. the following paragraphs are lifted directly from the obama website w/all the attendant spin an official website can muster. each bestows a benefit on someone who can't afford the price without tax dollars provided by another. each takes tax dollars out of the realm of mutual benefit and directly confers it on someone who couldn't pay for it to the detriment of the earning party.

Well, on the surface, I could see how these programs would give a conservative pause. But the fact remains that, if you examine any of them closely you'd see that they all have more weighty goals than redistributing the wealth.

Take the Harlem Children's Zone. If you have time, This American life did a pretty good story about it.

This American Life

It is actually something a conservative should get behind, which is an attempt to end the cultural poverty cycle present in inner city communities.

Other than that, I don't know why you'd have a problem helping folks pay for school in exchange for community service. Investments in education tend to pay off and then some. Are you paying for your own education, or is Uncle Sam (the taxpayer)?

I don't know how one could, in the context of current energy price volatility, claim that a program that ensures that people have heat in their houses is bad.

It could also be argued that a wonderful first step towards weaning people off of social security (or at least to make entitlement reduction easier to swallow) would be to motivate them to start planning for their own retirement.

I know you look at these things and think you're being robbed to pay lazy people to do nothing. I look at them and think that sometimes you need to spend a little money to help people make a little money.

irateplatypus:

have you ever heard of the Earned Income Tax Credit? It's a government subsidy that basically gives money to working Americans who make less than the poverty level. In other words, it's free money, presumably taken from the wealthy (or anyone above the poverty level) and "redistributed" to the poor.

it just so happens that this program was introduced and implemented by the demi-god of fiscal conservatives, one President Ronald Reagan.

now how is that different than what Obama's basic ideas are?

We have had similar programs of tuition assitance tax credits, neighborhood anti-poverty/anti-crime programs, home heating assistance, retirement savings credits...all funded with federal tax dollars for years.

Obama is proposing to tweak the programs and to marginally increase the funding for such programs to compensate for the dramatic increase in the number of familiers who have fallen below the poverty level or living from paycheck-to-paycheck or to provide some small relief to the middle class who have seem their real income decline as a result of the policies of the last eight years.

The only difference from the similar (or previous) existing programs is that McCain/Palin are now attempting to make it a wedge issue by calling it socialism.

If these programs are socialist....then the US has been socialist for years.

And if the US has been socialist since Reagan, does that mean that you have to be anti-American to be anti-socialism?

Oh me oh my!!!

Went to university? It's massively subsidized by the poor for the benefit of the middle and upper classes -- and not just by taxes. If you went to a public university, your tuition did not cover the costs. Moreover, your university grad wages ultimately express themselves in commodity prices which everyone pays. That is to say, we have been paying for your education -- even if some of us didn't get to go to university. We pay for your family's health care already. That is capitalism.

Nothing is further from the individualist fantasies of the anarcho-capitalists than actual existing capitalism. Capitalism, you see, is a system of socialisation. It is a way of distributing costs and benefits of social labour around society. That is its secret. That is why it defeated feudalism and slavery. Even if people don't recognise it as such, the distribution of those costs and benefits is a political question. It is now, it was in Ricardo's day, and it will be under Obama. Go ahead and complain about how "undeserving" people get some of yours, but free yourself of the fantasy that some pet mode of distribution is politically neutral.

So maybe you would pay more in taxes if the Obama administration implements some sort of national health scheme, but then you would be paying correspondingly less for private health care either directly or indirectly through higher prices. You can look at something like public investment in preventive medicine as yet another burden for America's heroic petit bourgeoisie to shoulder, or as a way of reducing health care costs, which, in one way or another, you are and will be paying for anyway.

The real issue is that you find some people "undeserving" and others deserving. Why do you deserve education subsidies and not others? Why does your family deserve health care over another?

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

I know someone that bought their house with Amway, and their car, and financial security to (mostly) do what they want when they want. Is it a pyramid, yes. Is it a scheme? No. A scheme is elusive in its nature. This person knew what they were getting into, busted their ass, and made it work for them. Do I hate Amway and anything like it? Yeah, its not my cup of tea.
Im not willing to make the type of sacrifice it would take. Thats my choice. He was 100% intent to do it that way. Thats not a division from reality, that is reality.

The second statement kind of symbolizes humanity itself. Its OK though, I feel the same way every time I leave Ibiza.

One story.

Do you really think that Amway is a solution for the unemployed?

Luck, hard work, luck, willingness to f*ck over the next 1000 people you meet, luck and more hard work may well work for a tiny slither of those who go into Amway or something like it.

*sigh*

Come on. . . . .Fuck Amway. Some people go to Medical school and still end up broke. Some people start out as a limousine driver to owning a million dollar company. The Driver Provider Others come up with a good idea, take a little risk and create wealth in that direction zip pots are here!. I personally know eight people that came from nothing, didn’t take hand outs, had 100% intention, didn’t listen to phrases like “eh you have to be lucky”, and created liberty for themselves. Amway, ditch digger, brain surgeon, whatever-not the point I was trying to make. I’m not willing to sacrifice what it would take to succeed in that direction. If you want to lump Amway (which I clearly stated I hate) with going to the casino or even snake oil salesmen that’s fine. It’s a lot easier when failure sets in to claim being a victim of bad luck isn’t it?

How many people does Seville Estate indirectly kill with its product each year? Is McDonalds fucking over scores of people, or are they the pinnacle of healthy eating? You’re making Amway out to sound like the Elgordo Lottery Promo.

Some people see getting from point A to point B as a mixture of two elements= mechanism and "luck". Percentages may vary, but it really doesn’t matter because in the absence of luck, all that is produced is "why me" or "its not fair" for a lot of hard working people.

Some people will see getting from point A to point B as requiring only one factor- 100% intention. Working hard with 70, 80 even 95% intention will only produce accomplishing some of the goal. Aside from uncontrollable elements, anyone that has 100% intention in achieving what they set out to do, let nothing stop them. They created a way or found a way. I’m only referring to legal ways

No I wasn’t saying unemployed people should go to Amway, but I think you knew that. I think unemployed people; that are able, should look through the Sunday paper and possibly do something they don’t like doing. At least until the determination to do what they want to do takes over.

Im a big fan of Star Trek, I think society might even be better in that direction. I don't think human nature will ever let it happen. If you want to accuse someone of fucking people over why dont you yell at the Federal Reserve or World bank.

a more rational system would provide extensive retraining programs and a systematic way for people to access alternate work possibilities. a more rational system might consider full employment to be a desirable system goal.

what folk do not seem to understand above is that these" lazy" people often--but not always--simply reproduce the characteristics of the system as a whole. libertarians have no way to think about this, so they attribute system characteristics to moral dispositions and in the process create this distinction between the virtuous petit bourgeois who lives shoulder to the grindstone and the Others who are parasites--and in this division lay the latent fascism of this viewpoint. nothing more. nothing less.

if you don't believe me, you should read some fascist discourse about the Problem of the Parasite--or, for a more surreal experience involving a floating version of the same type of category to designate the other, the Short Course of the History of the Soviet Communist Party, one of the great bits of collective auto-fiction written by the central committee of the CPU at the very height of stalinism--look at the lovely figure of the "hitlero-trotskyite wrecker"---it comes to the same thing---the imaginary system is understood as adequate-to-perfect in itself, left to itself---and problems are blamed on Outsiders as a function of some unchanging Personal Defect. put that into motion in the context of some Mission to Purge Society and make everything hunky dory--which is a logic that is not alien to libertarians when you get them talking about this "parasites" or "lazy people"--and the outcomes can be ugly indeed. a kind of Epic Ugliness lay there.

wake up. read some histories of capitalism in its actually existing forms--you know stuff that doesn't rely upon ridiculous separations which would lead you to think that capitalism died one fine day in 1856 in some obscure gunfight in kansas---but the actual sequence of systems, what they've been like, the centrality of crisis, the range of responses. the only way libertarian ideology makes any sense at all is in a historical vacuum.

this thread is frustrating because one side operates from inside this vacuum, substituting arbitrary anecdotes for anything remotely like system understanding. there is no way to reach an understanding if you are not willing to put the assumptions that allow you to avoid history into play. there is no way to even have a conversation that goes anywhere. what you get are long train-wrecks like this, which insofar as anyone learning anything is concerned might as well not happen. and this applies as much to myself as anyone else---there is no motivation to interact if you say the same things over and over and nothing happens. change for a moment how you think about the socio-economic environment you operate within---anyone who works from a social-system viewpoint can move to the anecdotal and understand how a worldview operates based on it--but there is no reciprocity.

so be it.

"a more rational system would provide extensive retraining programs and a systematic way for people to access alternate work possibilities. a more rational system might consider full employment to be a desirable system goal."

Is humanity as a whole- rational? As I stated earlier a resource based economy verses the current monetary system would change everything.

I'm not labeling anyone. A person that chooses not to work when work is available is making a choice. Im not calling them lazy, infact roachboy in a sense you are. They are making the choice that suits them; whatever happens beyond that point is left to logical consequences.

How many children are starving to death right now? I gave a certain amount of money over the course of this last year to fight that. I could have given much more and sold material things having nothing to do with my survival to contribute. Does that make me a closet fascist? Does the fact you are not liquidating the computer you are reading this on to combat world hunger label you as someone that is helping "purge" the world of the parasitic society?

i think i made my point clearly enough.
i delimited what i was referring to as a rhetoric that turns up over and over in the thread.
the attempt to invert the argument above is not interesting. that's all i have to say about it.

i didn't pick out individuals who use the rhetoric because i assume there is considerable variability in what folk understand it to mean or entail insofar as they are concerned---my point is that the rhetoric itself is problematic.
and i outlined why i think it is problematic.
do some research for yourself if you don't believe the claims i am making. it's easy enough.
if you find the argument discomforting, good. the position that legitimates that usage is a problem.
that's not to say that it isn't possible to be libertarian in outlook and not indulge this moralizing language--i just haven't seen any examples of it.

so sun tzu, your post above doesn't surprise me in that i assumed that variability up front---but i'm not sure i made this clear. in a sense, i didn't want to as the idea was to shake folk a bit into thinking about the words they use.

the bigger argument---which is an explanation of why it is that folk who operate from a more social-democratic perspective (as this is the extent of the "left" political spectrum that fits into this context, and which is potentially operative in the american context, even though it's well to the left of what obama is about, so far as i can tell)--and more conservative to anarcho-conservative (sorry) types can't seem to talk about the same thing.

move a bit outside your comfortable frame of reference if you want to discuss this--i'm up for it---but i'm less up for going around and around because there's no common ground to start from.

I’m not saying I don’t believe your data. I probably misunderstood you. I still only understand about 75% of what you stated. I will admit that's my short coming. While I am beyond pop-up books, I’m not Spock. I took the required humanities and English in college, but obviously I wasn’t "learned good enough". It’s the primary reason I asked if you read much Nietchize a couple months ago; it almost takes me the same amount of time to process what you are saying. The issue in communication here is not you, but me. I’ll try to read your posts 6 or 7 times if I’m going to respond to them. This is only meant respectfully.

Luck comes in many forms: Inherited wealth, health, positive life experiences, etc, etc, etc.

For each element of that luck, you could point to an example where it could be discounted. The thing is... individual success stories DO NOT imply that there is equal opportunity in the system as a whole to replicate that success for the rest of the un or underemployed population.

100% intention, dedication and motivation is wonderful and is a real bonus in the fight to claw your way to where you want to be, but it fails to account for the Black Swans of life (car accident, health scare, disruptive episodes, economic episodes outside of your control, etc, etc.), the systemic necessity to restrict opportunity to a few (capitalism needs social strata to function and it needs unemployment as necessary elements of the system) and the fact that not everyone has the guts, guile, will or intelligence to make it as either an Amway fucker-overer, brain surgeon or limousine entrepreneur...

If you really want social Darwinism rule of the most successful, and I think there's a thread of that in the argument that blames the victim, then you head straight to totalitarianism, probably fascistic in the Mussolini style... Directly.

roachboy makes good points, but i always feel like his posts were written in Swedish and then run through BabelFish or something.

I guess Im the worst of the worst then, aside from the disabled and babies born addicted to drugs I don't believe there are any victims. I do think natural consequences are a difficult aspect of life, but its not like people are powerless to change their situation. Im speaking on a general sense. I remember when I worked in the medical field I had to tell a lady that her husband was not going to be able to get treatment for brain cancer he had contracted. It was a minor technical bullshit reason in his insurance. She remained silent for a minute and sadly said "OK, thank you". I never forget the feeling of anger I had toward the system. There are multitudes of stories like that. If someone becomes sick or otherwise disabled, ofcourse they should recieve the best treatment possible.

Are you basically saying Socialism is the optimal direction for society to strive towards. The punch line the Republicans use "penalized for success" is inaccurate?

Sun Tzu, it is true that 'self made people' tend to overestimate their own ability to control their own destiny.

Interestingly, they still fail at the statistically expected rate[1]. However, those that do not have that self-overestimation of their own competence don't gamble as often based on their own competence.

[1] Ie, if you take small business owners, and ask them what percentage of small businesses will fail in the next year, they tend to be about right. If you ask them what is the chance their business will fail, the average over the small businesses ... is far lower than the actual rate.

Now, this isn't evil or wrong or anything like that. But anyone who actually thinks that their own competence means that they won't fail - that luck or other factors beyond their control don't have a huge impact - is deluding themselves. This delusion might result in them doing things that are actually a good idea, but the delusion exists.

And if you base your decisions, on a wide scale, on that delusion, you get crappy results. If you base your decisions, on your personal scale, on your own over confidence, then are you are more likely to end up stinking rich. At the same time, if you don't buy a lottery ticket, you are less likely to end up winning the lottary -- but that doesn't mean buying the lottery ticket was a good idea for everyone who bought one. :-)

I dont want this to run into the positive thinking thread in another area. (a majority don't believe in it anyway).

How many self made owners failed? How many employees had a good idea that they will never pursue for fear of failing? How many times does it take before someone gives up?

What do you mean by control?

I think one of the biggest factors is a lot of people don't like the aspect of sacrifice. Yeah there are those born with the silver spoons. From what I have seen, heard, and experienced myself nothing comes without sacrificing one thing to achieve another.

I see a lot of people making differences between "brick and mortar" businesses built from scratch and "Wall Street" millionaires, without it really being acknowledged that a million dollars sitting in either of their bank accounts is . . . theirs.

I'm sorry, I simply don't understand where it's my responsibility to take care of anyone besides myself and my family. There's usually always SOME explanation behind why someone is just completely and totally dirt poor, at least more often than poverty is just some unavoidable affliction that unwittingly implants itself in someone's life without there being a thing that person can do about it. If you are a single person with absolutely no education, no wealthy family, you can still manage to find yourself a job and support yourself. If you have a spouse, he or she can do the same to add more to the household.

It's when shit like having kids comes into the picture. If your ass is broke, why would you have children? Since we're no longer an overly agrarian society, not many people have children to help out on the farm. And even if we DID, you still have to account for the several years in the beginning when a child contributes absolutely nothing. Children are an expense. Children are NOT a necessity. So when I see someone wading through a grocery store with three kids and waving around an EBT card, hell YES, I get angry. I have one child, am divorced, with a modest income. You know the one thing I am absolutely NOT going to do? Have more children.

One way in which I agree with liberals: access to abortion. Western civilization should outright CELEBRATE abortion. It should be hailed as the best thing to happen since birth control and sliced bread. More emphasis needs to be placed on not breeding NEARLY as much as we do. I guarantee we'd have a MUCH smaller "need" problem if people didn't continue to look at having children as a "necessity" or an "entitlement". Sure, you may have the reproductive right to have children how and whenever you want, but when does the responsibility of providing for them enter the picture? Shouldn't it be about time to yank out the safety net so that people have to truly THINK about these issues before simply assuming they have this compelling entitlement to breed?

People have the right to do many, many things (and SHOULD have those rights); but that doesn't mean they're absolved of the consequences thereof.

Truly, I don't care how much anyone makes in a year, I don't care how they came by their money (in a legal sense - and even then, I don't care if your money is from selling drugs, but I DO care if you flat-out STOLE your money), whether they scraped to earn every single penny of it, invested, or simply inherited a huge chunk of it; the bottom line is, that is NOT my money, I have absolutely NO entitlement to it whatsoever, and neither does anyone else. No one ever promised me wealth or prosperity, and I think any such promise would be bogus. You have to work for it. And sometimes what work will just manage to make a living, rather than extravagance. At what point does that make Billy Millionaire owe me more of his money? It doesn't.

Life isn't fair. Taking money from one person to give it to another isn't just "unfair", it's completely unjust.

My points should not be taken to mean that I don't believe in charity; I certainly do. And while people are busy throwing rich people under the bus, they ignore that MANY very well-to-do people donate their money, product or time to various charities and outreaches. In fact, Dave Ramsey, the man whose blog was the opening post of this thread, includes that as a part of his wealth-building strategy for people looking to get out of debt. He has a very common sense, no-nonsense approach to building wealth, and at the end of those steps, he talks about charity and paying it forward.

So I totally support private charities and the WILLING donation of money to those less fortunate. It's one of the many things I think the private sector could do MUCH better than the government could - charity/welfare, insurance, home ownership, you name it. Government has become too big and too inefficient and should not deal with redistributing wealth where THEY think it ought to go. If you give people the chance to handle THEIR affairs and needs first instead of taking such a huge portion of their income in taxes, we'd probably SEE a hell of a lot more charity and wealth circulating throughout.

The biggest obstacle to that is, people have such a lack of confidence in both themselves and others that they think that other people (no different from you or me) who simply happen to be in elevated positions are better qualified to make decisions regarding their lives and money than they are themselves. Someone asked another poster earlier if they were anarchist; I'm not anarchist, but I'm surely minarchist. I support the smallest government possible, and believe one should exist only to secure individual liberty and enforce laws that uphold individual liberty. The role of government should never to be take care of its citizens; it should protect us from harm by protecting our liberties, but only so that WE can take care of ourselves.

no one is taking your money away from you

It simply isn't possible to provide universal healthcare, more generous social programs, tax credits (other peoples money) to people who pay no taxes, etc. without taking money away from the people who are earning it.

A progressive income tax is nothing new....we've had it since the passage of the 16th Amendment nearly hundred years ago.

Its only in this election cycle that it has been so grossly mischaracterized as wealth distribution.

Um no, I've pretty much been against progressive taxation systems for as long as I can remember. Just as I have been against any form of taxation which targets a particular group; in this case, people who are successful.

For some people to have to pay close to 50% in taxes while others who pay no taxes are given money is not only wealth redistribution, it's robbery on a large scale.

This is a bit of a mess. I don't know why people interject ideology into so many things, all it ever does is take focus from where it should be.

The market can do some things right, and the government can do some things right. The market is where you see wealth reward success (basically). The government is where you see taxes distributed via services to those that need it (again, basically). Morality takes a back seat to pragmatism in both cases. We need certain things to work before we can start figuring out how morality fits in. Are either the market or the government moral entities? No. Morality (or ethics) in either are done either out of necessity as a part of a reasonable contract or are the result of individual altruism. Equality being a part of taxes happens long after we've built highways, paid police and firefighters, and such. Even Social Security came into existence out of necessity, not morality.

The rich people usually know how to avoid taxes. Like Steve Jobs only gets a $1 income each year, so does that make him poor? He might get all of his compensation in the form of stock options that he holds on to for one year then can pay 15% on that income for long-term capital gains. It is one loophole they need to fix. But I'm not sure you can tax based on net worth.

But I don't have a problem with him making as much money as he does since he runs a successful company that treats the workers well.

Its great that you have opposed a progressive tax system for as long as you can remember. I'm sure you're not alone.

But the fact remains, there has never been a western style democracy that hasnt had such a system of taxation.

And since its inception in the US, it hasnt adversely impacted the economic growth of the country or the top income earners.

Evidently there are some people who want the best for society, while others only want the best for themselves.

I'd sooner call low wages immoral than I would taxation.

The assumption I see too often here is that poor people aren't hardworking and don't deserve what they cannot afford.

If one busts one's ass to make a living but, well, can't make a living out of it, while another does the same but makes several livings out of it, don't you think the system is a little broken?

I think anyone who's wealthy and knows better wouldn't want to eliminate all rebalancing methods to help the poor. What do you think would happen if you eliminated progressive taxation and social programs that help the poor? Would the country be better off?

This is where you're assuming welfare and forced wealth equality is "what's best for society".

Do I get any say in how many children someone can have while they're dirt poor? Do I get any say in what they spend food stamps on, or how they maintain their health before getting on Medicaid? Throwing my hard-earned money at people without having any say in what happens to it isn't what I call "only wanting what's best for myself." It's called wanting to keep my hard-earned money until I find a worthy cause to which I'd like to donate it.

But why we're on that subject, I don't completely believe in altruism for its own sake. I don't believe in pulling someone else down in order to raise someone else up. I believe in the occasional well-earned hand up, but I don't believe giving someone money qualifies as a hand up; that's a hand-out. College scholarship programs, employment security and job centers - those I can get behind. (Although those could easily be privatized and not completely cocked up with government intervention; once again, I don't assume that rich people are all just greedy assbags who never donate to charity or put their money towards good causes). Programs that force banks to lend to unqualified borrowers, pay for an endless stream of babies for as long as any one woman wants to keep popping them out, putting her even FURTHER into poverty? No. That kind of inefficient crap I do NOT support.

If you have a skill that sixty million other people can do? No, it's not immoral to pay a lower wage. That's why people have incentive to develop more advanced skills, continue the learning process through life - you know, better themselves. When a monkey could do your job, be prepared to accept a monkey's pay.

Taxation - in what way is that NOT theft? You're taking someone else's money and giving it back out to people without giving the payer a choice in the matter. Theft.

I've been poor before. I worked hard. I don't make that assumption. But "don't deserve what they can't afford"? Where does that end? Everyone has an obligation to pay the rent. Living quarters are not a right, they're not an entitlement, they're a responsibility. In the adult world, people are obligated to secure lodgings for themselves. If you have less than what you want, that's incentive to do more, to innovate, to learn and to improve. A literal federal invitation to women to just HAVE babies they can't afford isn't incentive to improve. It's incentive to stay at a level to where they can still qualify for the free lunch.

No. This assumes everyone has an obligation to be altruistic. They don't. There are ways to get out and get your hands on more money if one is so inclined. Provided people don't make stupid life decisions - the foremost being, having kids they can't afford - and then whine and cry about how their wage "can't support their family." Of course it can't, you dolt.

Immediately? No. People would flap around, freaking out that their safety net has disappeared. They'll then figure out ways to adjust. Maybe they'll have more incentive to plan their families. Private charities will still exist, giving people a voluntary option to donate.

People who can't? . . . sorry.
-----Added 2/11/2008 at 11 : 37 : 50-----
Well, according to this FICA and Medicare line I'm looking at on my paystub, yes, they are.
-----Added 2/11/2008 at 11 : 39 : 04-----
No, it's actually being called what it is. You can call a duck a dog for a hundred years, doesn't make it any less a duck.

if private donations to charity were enough, why does the government spend billions per year in social programs? because it isn't enough.

I think you should go research a) what the average person on welfare gets from the government and b) what the average number of kids a mother on welfare has. I expect both numbers are considerably lower than you think

and taxes aren't theft, they're the cost of citizenship. all of your tax money doesn't go to someone else; the vast majority benefits you directly

Dex (and Dark Passenger), do you think that welfare is in place to be nice to poor people or to try and ensure that our economy doesn't collapse because of vast income differences? And are you familiar with welfare in all of the other industrialized countries?

Do you think that perhaps people aren't as inclined to give as much because the richer they are, the higher the tax bracket and the more they have to pay in taxes? They're basically being FORCED to charitably donate - and yet, they donate charitably on top of that. So obviously, the drive is there. If they got to keep more of their money, they'd probably donate more, and spend more, invest more, stimulating the economy, creating more jobs, etc.

I work at a CPA firm with a LOT of big-money clients, and if anything would make you feel sorry for them, my job would. It's agonizing how much of their money I watch being pissed away on a yearly basis. And I have just as much sympathy for the middle-class, or even the lower class who are still being strangled out of part of their checks because every person in America is required to contribute to FICA. (Most of whom wouldn't even qualify for it if THEY got into a tight spot).

Seen 'em. And you know? One is too much. If you know you have no education, no prospects, no decent job experience, you have no business breeding. That's called a stupid life decision and I have absolutely no sympathy for you. I do not relish the idea of rewarding people for being morons. The concept of "babies cost money" isn't a hard one to grasp.

Source?

I'm not against taxation for things like infrastructure and military defense. Like I said before, I'm all for a small government that exists to secure and protect our liberty. I'm not blind to the fact that that requires money.
-----Added 2/11/2008 at 11 : 55 : 53-----
How exactly would our economy collapse? Poor people are less inclined to spend and thus stimulate the economy. Look at the economic stimulus checks we got not too long ago - didn't exactly have the effect the government thought they would (though I was appreciative to get my money back). Most people either saved them or paid down debt. So if someone was having to put their money towards medical bills (say, in the absence of Medicaid), the economy's not really missing it anyway.

ETA: And on the topic of low wages, someone very correctly stated before that the more expense you force on a company, the more they're going to compensate - by raising prices, or by laying off workers. So you don't think that not having to pay huge chunks of money on their 1065's is going to free up a LOT more capital to create more jobs and perhaps encourage them to pay their hardworking employees a better wage?

Dexter....your libertarian model of taxation only for defense and "essential services" for the public as a whole rather than devoting a portion to helping those most in need has never existed in any western style democracy anywhere in the world since the industrial revolution.

Why do you think that is?

It seems simple to me....most citizens, and even most economists, just dont share that view.

I'll ask again....has it adversely impacted the economic growth of the country or the top income earners?

It goes beyond a moral imperative....its good public policy.

The 16th Amendment. Perhaps you've heard of it?

And i'm pretty sure that lowering taxes on the wealthy wouldn't result in more charitable donations. It would end up in more luxury automobile sales. Half the wealthy only donate to charity as a tax loophole as it is. Take away the taxes and now what incentive do they have?

I know that it's not something people like to think about, but without the poor (or more specifically when there is massive wealth inequality) there's no economy. Oligarchy is a bit of a mess.

That's the sixteenth amendment. I don't see anything in there about "the price of citizenship". I didn't realize there was a price set forth for the accident of being born in any specific country.

It's an absolutely well-deserved tax loophole, because they're essentially taking over for the government in giving back to society. Were I rich, I'd absolutely rather give a portion of my money on my own terms rather than have it extorted from me by the government.

As far as incentive? I don't know - maybe not all rich people are, as mentioned before, greedy assbags. There are various other tax shelters and deductions one can use to avoid taxes. This is precisely the kind of liberal mindset that I hate: if you have money, you're an asshole. It's nothing but blatant wealth envy spurred by an entitlement complex that the government has only helped foster.

And to answer a prior question - I don't think the government uses welfare to "be nice to poor people" OR to prevent some economic disaster. They do it to create need for themselves, to make themselves bigger and fatter and more malignantly embedded in the lives of Americans.

And yet you still havent identified any country anywhere in the world in the last 100+ years where you can find your libertarian model of government that exists solely to "secure and protect liberty."

Perhaps because it looks great on paper (to some) but doesnt work when applied in practice.

Funny, I hate the conservative mindset of: fuck the poor, it's their own damn fault.

Uh no, maybe perhaps because it hasn't been applied, because people are too afraid to actually have to look out for and provide for themselves.

I believe what you're speaking of is communism.

No....I am speaking of every western style democratic capitallist based system in the world.

I know, conservatives are pretty whacked out. Like the ones who don't want women to have abortions, OR pay for the babies they have. Pretty messed up.

Good thing I'm not one.
-----Added 3/11/2008 at 12 : 26 : 38-----
But I thought you were talking about a Libertarian model, which you just said has never been applied.

Im still waiting for you, or anyone, to identify one country that has prospered, or even has been attempted, with your system of taxation only for defense and the protection of essential liberties.

I want to see the working model and maybe I'll rethink my position.

Are you suggesting communist countries?

I believe a working form of libertarianism already existed for centuries. It was called feudalism.

I think most libertarians would be shocked to find on which side of the spectrum they'd find themselves were it to ever be enacted as a form of government.

Dexter, I'm with dc_dux: I want to see some kind of model. Rather than respond to you point by point (which would be a challenge in itself for all the misconceptions I see), I think it would be more constructive for you to put forth your idea of how society should handle things. What would happen to the most destitute? You cannot assume people will be charitable to help them out, especially not at the level at which they are helped presently.

Do you support fiefdom?

I cannot see how your perception of society would work. Can you paint me a picture?

I have always been fascinated by the Libertarian postion. It is the ultimate in me, me, me.

I like to think that our civiliation in better than that. I like to beleive that we can work to achieve individual greatness. I also believe that we can work together as democracies to raise the standard of living for all (better roads, schools, utilites, etc.) through fair taxation.

I am not talking absolutes. This is not economic equality. This is not ballet dancers being forced to wear lead shoes.

But there will always be those who want to take care of themselves only and there are those that will strive to get as much for as little. There will always be extremes at either end of any spectrum.

Thankfully, the majority of people live somewhere in the middle.

What scares me (about some of the espoused Libertarianism above) is the idea that poor folks will stop having kids
as soon as they realize they cannot afford them. Anyone care to visit the other 3/4's of the planet? If we, as rich
nations, do not support our poorest children (to a minimum degree, I'm not talking BMW's in the driveway), what
kind of human misery will we be living amongst while we enjoy the "fruits" of our labours?

There are taxes on payroll, personal property, pensions, severance, Social Security, corporation, stock transfer, tobacco, tonnage, transportation, utilities, accumulated earnings, ad - valorem, alcoholic beverages, amusements, apparel, business, capital gains, consumption, corporate income, dividends, employment, estate, excise, franchises, fuel, furnishings, sales, gift, gross receipts, health care, holding company, inheritance, land, license, life insurance, luxuries, occupation, operators license, motor oil, motor vehicle, did I miss any? Lets pick something from that list- motor vehicle: There's tire taxes (per tire, times 5), the battery taxes, there's air conditioning taxes, there's PST, GST, HST, QST, there's luxury taxes, and there's fuel consumption taxes. Oh yes, and there's filing fees. Income . . . . Equality is the goal? It seems graduated is hypocritical to its intended outcome. Why does the debt attached to federal notes get a pass in all this?

Exactly.

Poor people always tend to have more children... In 3rd world countries now and under other more 'traditional' systems without govt social security or pensions, the children a poor family has will be expected to look after their older, incapacitated and unemployed relatives over time. Of course, this usually includes child labour, lack of education, social stratification, etc...

Birth control, with the massive expansion in personal choice that goes with it, _requires_ a different sort of support system for the older, unable and unemployed in society.

Ignoring the comparison to feudalism (people were actually more tied to each other in that system than they are currently, and I don't propose paltry land "gifts" in return for military service), I'd be happy to:

Things would be about how they are now (minus bans on drugs, guns, gay marriage/adoption, and other civil liberties that have no business in the hands of anyone other than the American people). Only . . . you know that chunk that goes missing out of your paycheck every month? It'll be there. People would not be taxed when they save, spend, buy a house, on capital gains, on interest, over and over again. All money would be taxed once (say, a sales tax - no, I don't mean FairTax), and negligibly - so as to cover a scaled-back military meant for home defense only and infrastructure costs for things such as roads, a police force, etc. Everything else - home ownership, business start-up, health insurance - is privatized.

Libertarianism certainly isn't all "me, me, me": it's also "you, you, you." The same things that would benefit me would benefit you, and your neighbours, and your family. If you'd feel a tug at the old heartstrings enough to go feed a family of eight that should rightfully never have gotten up to eight people, you go right on ahead; no one is stopping you, and in fact, that's encouraged. What you're proposing in supporting the current system isn't people helping other people - it's channeling money through an intermediary and expecting them to do it for you (while skimming quite a hefty amount off the top themselves, or for "special projects" - such as the war on drugs, brilliantly directing cops towards the real dangerous element in society: the petty pot smokers carrying a dimebag of weed, the self-abusing methheads who buy hookers. Child molesters? Rapists? Murderers? What are they?). If you care so goddamn much, go give your time to helping the needy. Donate directly out of your pocket and decide how much you want to give and where you want it to go. Just stop expecting me and others to happily do the same with absolutely no say in our money's use.

I don't not care about the needy, nor do most Libertarians; we simply don't usher all the needy under such a broad umbrella, and we observe a very striking difference between truly helping people and keeping them dependent by never requiring them to learn anything. Sometimes, the kind of "help" others think is so important is exactly what keeps people weak, dependent and entitled.

Why not talk about the BMW in the driveway? Why not talk about the TV, anything fun that costs money, or the computer you are reading this on? None of these "material" things are essential to our survival. Sell the computer you are about to type on and donate the funds to the starving children in Africa. Is that not the essence of this entire conversation?

I ask these questions in complete sincerity as I am truly trying to understand: Where do you draw the line? In other words is there a particular figure you have reached and from that point the rest goes to the collective? Do you agree with the government because you feel it has the best in mind for you? If there a a monetary standard you have where do you budget anything that is not essential to your survival should be given to those with less than you?

Is there a process of justification in not contributing everything you can?

Picking and choosing which poor people "deserve" help the most....USA! USA! USA!

so i take it that libertarian=types believe so strongly in the assumption that there is a correlation between being poor and being morally defective that they see no problem whatsoever with condemning the poor to a life of abject misery, kinda like being in jail all the time for having the bad form to be poor and not Righteous as they are--libertarians are always the Righteous it seems, and in that lay the ideology's appeal, a form of eternal self-congratulations. while living this richly deserved life of abject misery, the Poor should try to Edify themselves by thinking about how much less they are, as human beings, than those Righteous Libertarians. maybe after a long enough sentence, this Less-Thans will see the Error of their Ways and become just like you, narcissistic and patronizing armed with a surreal and ultimately infantile ideology that enables you to justify market barbarism as providing a Hard Lesson in the Righteous Life--which of course you monopolize.



the worst possible argument for libertarian ideology is actually seeing that ideology argued for, seeing what the Righteous write about their Righteousness.

Most libertarians I know are dirt poor. Perhaps it's self-loathing?

no, they think they're poor because the government is "stealing their money". most libertarians I run into are under the delusion that if you took away income tax, they would stop being poor and would soon be driving Bentley's. almost all of them having an extremely elitist attitude towards the poor.

They only pay maybe 1/6 their income in taxes, though. If a libertarian makes $20k a year, that means without taxes this hypothetical person would make about $24k. Of course they'd have to walk to work on dirt roads and they'd have to watch out for thieves, as the roads and police are both paid by taxes.

no no no, all the untaxed corporations would be handing out $250,000/year jobs like Halloween candy

Taxed negligibly? What does that mean? So does this mean the poor can get away with paying an even lower proportion of overall taxes?

Do you also mean libraries, support services (such as abuse and addiction services), K-12 education, unemployment insurance, career support services, etc.? This would all be privatized? That sounds like a recipe for plutocracy to me (i.e. the poor would not have access to much, if any, of these things).

There isn't anything fundamentally wrong with that. I'd prefer the government do these things for us. It's a good role for it to play. That's why many of us vote certain groups into power. (And that's where you and I differ, apparently.)

I cannot afford to do that on the scale I think it should be done. That's why I support the current system.

I don't expect you to be happy about it, or anyone. It's not so much about you as it is about the greater benefit to society--you know, other people.

It's too bad you don't care about the needy, because many of them are directly responsible for the generation of the wealth that you likely enjoy. I don't quite know what you mean by "keeping dependent." I cannot think of a widespread program that aims to keep people dependent on anything. Several programs (some of which I've mentioned above) aim to do the opposite. No one wants people to be dependent; we want them to be empowered and successful. This is why I support many social programs you want dismantled.

I don't understand your reasoning. Can you clarify this a bit further please?

Oooh oooooh and I could finally exercise my constitutional rights to have a lead toy manufacturing sweatshop and to staff it with the children of the poor.

Several years ago, the Brookings Institution published a report on the "government's greatest achievement of the second half of the 20th century as identified by history and political science academicians:

Government's Greatest Achievements of the Past Half Century - Brookings Institution

While it doesnt speak to the issue of wealth redistribution for the most part...I can only say that I am thankful that we didnt have a libertarian government!

I am wondering if anyone has taken note of what words roachboy
CAPITALIZED, and why he did so.

His post here needs to be repeated and shouted over the roof tops.
This libertarian nonsense reminds me of a line from Charles Dickens-
A Christmas Carol.
This might not be verbatim, but as close as I can remember it went thus:
Scrooge declares....

"well, the poor aught to go ahead and die then,
and decrease the surplus population."

I though he was just keeping it real, A.A. Milne style.


I agree with him wholeheartedly that the most effective argument against libertarianism consists of nothing more than a few detailed explanations of what a libertarian world would be like.

My landlords are libertarians, and the way that libertarianism seems to manifest in their capacity as landlords amounts to a very effective argument against libertarianism.

Over the weekend I was in a restaraunt and had the experience of sitting within earshot of a father explaining politics to his young children, who were listening with rapt attention. He explained that if he worked and earned 2 pumpkins, and was forced to give up one of his pumpkins to someone poor and unemployed, that would be wrong, and its unfair that people like Obama and Democrats take pumpkins from those who worked for them and give them to people who haven't worked for them. The children were mesmerized by their father's speech.

Don't you mean propaganda?

I don't believe they will simply stop having kids. Rather, I believe Malthus was right, and if you provide support to people who are struggling, they will just have more struggling children for you to support, and those children will grow up and continue to contribute ad-nauseum to the welfare state you have just created.

The world isn't a nice place, and bad things happen. I want to be left alone to put MY MONEY towards keeping bad things from happening to me, not to help someone who won't help themselves, or their crotch fruit.