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Hate to break it to you, but that's not redistributing wealth. That's basically known as paying one's fair share, The wealthy pay more in taxes yes, but they also get more benefit as well. They stand to lose far more than I do were civil disorder to break out and all possessions be smashed.

Silly argument. Yes, this is the reason government was formed - to protect one's shit. But obviously the role of government has evolved into much different role - an opposite role, to be exact - actually taking your shit away and giving it to someone else. This would be called stealing, but not when the government does it. This is now the government's chief function, considering that of its $3T budget, 60% of its expenditures are on entitlements. So the US government's chief role is now redistribution of wealth. Obama just wants to make it worse.

So while hypothetically government "protects" the wealthy, I'd imagine they'd lose a lot less money by taking their chances with no government stealing from them and building a moat. Meanwhile, the "working poor" take $8 in services for every dollar paid (Heritage Foundation - you want a source, you Google it). So no, the wealthy do not get more for their tax dollar. They get a lot less.

"Fair share" is everyone paying the same flat rate (the poor and middle class would still pay less, but the same proportion). But when the bottom 50% of wage earners only pay 3.6% of the taxes, there is something very unfair about that. At some point, people in the bottom third not only pay no taxes, but get net checks from the government. Is this still fair by your world view? At what point does it get unfair?

At some point, a huge portion of the country doesn't pay taxes, and becomes a "gimme" class instead of a "do something for your country class." Too many in the wagon, not enough pulling. I think all citizens, unless *temporarily* out of work, need to be invested enough in the country that they are outside if the wagon, pulling, and being contributing citizens to the state. Otherwise, they are not fully participating in being citizens.

If you've got more wealth, property etc., you're getting more for your tax dollars and as such should be paying more.

You're getting more because you earned it, not because the government took it from someone else and gave it to you. That's like saying rapists get more sex than married guys. Yeah, technically true, but...

And it would be nice if you didn't go mischaracterizing mr. Buffett's comment. He's well known to oppose the sort of careless tax policies you're advocating. He has definitively stated that he doesn't believe he should be paying a lower tax rate than his employees do.

Buffett might be a good investor, but he is being foolish for his clients and being dishonest about his income. First off, doubling the capital gains rate, as Obama wants to do, would dramatically hurt his clients (both by stifling economic growth, and thus hurting BH's share price, and personally for his clients on tax day). If I owned Berkshire Hathaway at $30K+ per share, I'd be furious Buffett said this.

Secondly, Buffett is rich because he holds stock in his own investment fund. In other words, he doesn't even pay himself a salary. So while it is unlikely, it is possible he could pay less income taxes than his secretary - even while he likely paid tens or hundreds of millions in capital gains taxes. And his income tax rate is higher than his secretary. He just doesn't earn income - he earns capital gains. Nice subterfuge though.

The reality is that businesses are flocking to Ireland, which has a corporate tax rate one half that as the US. Now that's a careless tax policy.

Where did I say "Democrats, as opposed to our lovely Bushite true conservatives"? Before implying I have some mental disorder, perhaps you might want to consider that both of the major parties in the US are pretty much big government types. I said "leftists", which, by Bush's actions of growing the government to crack down on personal freedoms and take away the freedom of movement, freedom to do business without being tracked, and a whole bunch more pretty much includes him and his ilk.

Government can only be trusted when it fears the people. That's not going to happen under the control of any group as statist and centralist as the Democrats or Republicans. Many of the supposed differences between them are talking points to get votes. The rest are not so much a difference of opinion on government growth but at the rate it should happen.

If you want smaller government and more personal freedoms, vote Libertarian (or Freedom Party (International), Jeffersonian Party, American Reform Party, or the Populist Party of America). If the complaint is that no one is running, then promote a candidate or run yourself.

Beware, though, of many "small government, freedom to the people" parties who have planks in their platforms specifically calling for curtailing of freedoms of those with whom they disagree, like the Prohibition Party, American Heritage Party, or the America First Party. Freedom for your friends and not your opponents is not really freedom at all.

A strong military under civilian control, the right to retaliate to attack, open trade with other countries not subsidized or tariffed in either direction, regulation of interstate trade, equitable strategic arms reduction and extradition treaties, and the right to contain or forcibly extract people like bin Laden when extradition won't work are pretty much all the federal government should be concerned about. Everything else is guaranteed by the Constitution to be delegated to the states or the people, after all.

I'll stop calling the Republican party leftists along with the Democrats when they stop doing the same things the Democrats do.

http://www.populistamerica.com/the_america_haters_ strike_again

Wow, AC, you lived up to the name...

Let's see, you are: member of Freerepublic, Likes Ron Paul and think Bush is smart and a great American.

You should really read this: http://www.populistamerica.com/the_america_haters_ strike_again

Ugh. Previous link is now forcing a login. Better:

http://www.populistamerica.com/34_states_align_aga inst_national_i_d__card

Our original Constitution forbade taxes on personal labor and private control of currency. Look at what we have now; - the Federal Reserve and income taxes.

"Article I, Section 8, Clause 5, of the United States Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof and of any foreign coins. But that is not the case. The United States government has no power to issue money, control the flow of money, or to even distribute it - that belongs to a private corporation registered in the State of Delaware - the Federal Reserve Bank."

"The purpose of the personal income tax is to redistribute wealth upward and to control the civil society. The purpose of the Federal Reserve is to redistribute the wealth upward and to control the civil society. The receivers of the redistributed wealth and the controllers of the society are the private owners of the Federal Reserve -- not the government."

http://www.populistamerica.com/federal_reserve

He was arrested in Florida in 1991 over a road-rage shooting incident and spent a year in a Florida jail.

He completed his probation for aggravated assault and firing a weapon in August 1993.

Prior to that, Mr Padilla, a US citizen of Puerto Rican origin, had a number of gang-related encounters with police in Chicago -

Norma Leon, the Padilla family's former landlady, told the Chicago Sun-Times that Mr Padilla's mother was worried because her son had left the country and become a member of a cult.

"She was scared for him," Ms Leon told the newspaper.

In 2001, officials said, he made contact with Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaeda commander [Osama bin Laden's operations chief--me] who is in American custody and apparently co-operating with the FBI.

And of course, the US court system has backed up the Prez on this case:

A federal appeals court yesterday backed the president's power to indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil without any criminal charges, holding that such authority is vital during wartime to protect the nation from terrorist attacks.

Yeah, I don't think this guy is all that innocent. Besides, I don't see any evidence of torture, except for Abdullah al-Muhajir's claims. However, it's hard to take that seriously when claiming torture is literally taken directly from the Al Qaeda handbook. Does it not bother you that you are playing into the hands of the enemies of the US just because you hate Bush so much?

In the US, it's easier to smear and blacklist your political or economic enemies than it is to jail them. It's called "economic assassination." Domestic spying programs are used to make the blacklists.

You mean how the Prez uses the FBI to investigate his political enemies? Or how the IRS suddenly does an anal probe audit of those who have turned against you. I remember that, except it was the Clintons, no the Bushes doing it. I guess it's OK when it's not Republican abusing power.
From here:

Shortly after Bill Clinton and his gang took over the White House, the FBI was coerced into conducting investigations that were anything but thorough. The quality of background investigations of White House personnel was downgraded dramatically due to the scheming of "Clinton's clan." That's not all. A few examples were the inappropriate criminal investigations of career White House employees because they might be in the way of an ambitious first "lady;" the turning over of more than 900 confidential FBI summary reports on former Reagan and Bush political appointees.

and here

Bill Clinton used the FBI to compile dossiers on critics like Conservative Congressman Bob Barr and legal gadfly Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch

Of course, if Bush is using federal power to shut down his political adversaries, he's done a crappy job. It seems to me that everyone is being investigated in Washington from Tom Delay and Mark Foley to William Jefferson, but you only really hear about the Republican investigations. Can you tell me who William Jefferson is without looking it up? If the Prez can't dig up dirt on Barak