Because, either people who have education given to them appreciate it, on average, or they don't. That is what is known as a "fact" which is not an opinion. Now, you are allowed to have contrafactual opinions around me, but you don't get to have them around me and have me stay quiet about my opinion, which is that your opinions are full of shit. See how that works?
Wow. He did not believe that the free market knows best, as demonstrated from the quotes! He thought of a free market differently than you do, he recognized that a market needs regulations in order to stay free. His work must be understood in the context of mercantilism, which he disagreed with, but he did not disagree with government regulation in general.
However, I will concede the point that education costs money, and while an education may be free to the individual, society still pays the cost. And when education is free, it is free regardless of whether the outcome involves the recipient of the education getting a better job. Finally, as I mentioned, education is a positive externality, and a free market will not allocate enough resources towards education.
What I will not concede, however, is that there exists any rational adult who is confused on what the term "free education" means. I highly doubt anyone believes teacher's pay and the cost of schools and books just materialize out of thin air, so your entire diatribe against free education is meaningless. Anyone who is capable of understanding that already does. You just wasted everyone's time in order to attempt to denigrate the role of government in education. At least you walked it back into the realm of sanity by the end, so I guess my work here is done. See you next time!
Nobody can quantify whether an investment is really worth it before thy make it, it is only after the fact that you know whether it was worth it, but that does not stop us from making investments. And investing in a citizens education benefits everyone. The government gets more tax income from educated people, and you get better goods and services. Because everyone benefits, everyone should help pay. Education is a positive externality, it can not be rationed correctly by the free market, because a market can not handle externalities, good or bad.
Yes, but some things require moral judgments, like cheating. It is my business when people con others. That is what is meant by the phrase "freedom isn't free." and it illustrates the difference between freedom and license. License is "I get to do whatever I want, without cost to me," while freedom implies two things: one, you will give others the same freedoms, even if that inconveniences you, and second, that as part of the price of the defense of your freedoms, you will defend the freedoms of others. And so, when criminals take over our economic and political system in order to enrich themselves, I fight it.
But it isn't the past couple of years. It is the past thirty or forty. ALL the newly created wealth has gone to the top, not to the people who created it. You didn't read the link, did you? I know because you ask a question that is answered there. I believe the answer you seek can be found towards the bottom, in the section titled "your loss, their gain." And both the math and underlying facts are impeccable. Here, I'll post the link again so you can educate yourself some more:
You see, the bottom sixty percent have not seen any increase in spending power in the last thirty years. None. All that wealth was taken by the very top.
Ah, it looks like you forgot to multiply that 27 million by the 15,000 households who make that much.
Anyway, you say you are okay with that level of income disparity, even knowing that their wealth came at our expense? All the increase in GDP over the last thirty years went to them, and you think that is because they deserve it? What is the rationale for the majority to even participate in such a system, where their hard work is not rewarded? I rising tide, it appears, does not lift all ships.
Ahahaha, oh my. Did you just mention Adam Smith? Have you read "Wealth of Nations?" No, don't answer that. I know you haven't. Let me quote some Adfam Smith to you, my friend, and we will see how long it takes for you to start calling him a commie. I guarantee after I am done here, you will never attempt to drop that name again.
"Laws and government may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and to preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence. The government and laws hinder the poor from ever acquiring the wealth by violence which they would otherwise exert on the rich; they tell them they must either continue poor or acquire wealth in the same manner as they did."
You like that one? I'm just getting started. This next one is a bit of a long passage, but oh so worth the read:
"His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.
His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.
Their superiority over the country gentleman is, not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction, that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public.
To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens.
To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."
Good stuff, huh? He is saying that his "invisible hand" only applies to land owners and laborers (the first two of his three class
Look, it doesn't matter if SOMEONE had to pay for it, what makes it FREE is that I did not have to pay for it. You can't just redefine what the word "free" means for ideological purposes.
Wait, doesn't the person getting help with education generally pay taxes as well? And won't a higher education help them make more money, and pay more in taxes? Isn't this just an investment on the part of the government? Taxes aren't stealing, they are the price you pay to live in the society you want to live in. As long as the majority of us want to pay taxes, you will have to pay taxes too, as long as you want to live here. Remember, citizenship isn't free, and neither is freedom. You want to live here? You have to pay for the privilege. You don't want to pay? Fine, but you don't get to freeload here, go be a leach someplace else.
Ah the old scare quote around injustices. When the rich steal from the poor, it is business as usual. When we try to take back what was stolen, then WE are the thieves? Socialist systems have plenty of objective measures of worth, while the free market does not. There is no difference, as far as the free market is concerned, between a man who makes a million honestly, and one who makes it through theft. The free market makes no moral judgments.
"I got a free education!" "No, you didn't, someone had to pay for it." "Well, it as free to me. And it was free from the government's point of view, too, because the money they invested in me will be more than repaid by the increased taxes I will pay, because I am making more money as an educated worker than an uneducated one. Win-win!" "Yes, but the rich lose because when everyone educates themselves, there are no more poor desperate people to take advantage of. So it isn't free, the rich lose out!" "Ah. Now I understand what REALLY you mean by 'not free'"
Read about Project Cybersyn, a Chilean project from 1970, started by Salvadore Allende that replaced price signals and allowed a socialist economy to work as efficiently as a capitalist one. Right after it was invented, we killed Allende and installed Pinochet, a brutal dictator.
"We" do not live in a world of materialism and worldly possessions. You do. Most people are not money centric, or driven by the profit motive. Most people are more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity, because we are genetically predisposed to support cooperation and punish injustice and unfairness, because that is the most effective strategy. Look up games theory, and such experimental games as the dictator game. Now try to explain the outcomes using the standard economic model of man as a rational and entirely self interested actor. You can't.
I never said the rich got rich for no reason, I am saying, they got rich by buying legislation, having family money and rich friends, and being taught to have no sympathy for the little people. The rich, in general, do not "bring things" to society. They say, "If you want to eat, you work for me." and then the actual engineers and factory workers bring something to society, while the rich sit back and get fat off their investments, with very little risk, as we have proved we will always bail them out and refrain from charging them with crimes, even when the things they bring to the table are all outright fraud.
As for the rich giving back to society, you forget the opportunity cost. You compare "Having the rich around" to "having nothing" when there are better options, like all of us having a little more and them having a little less. Income inequality in this country is a crime against humanity. Here is a handy chart, showing how screwed we really are.
Those are all things that we personally never had any investment in, yet reap the rewards for their existence.
Things like, a free lunch? I never invested in it personally. yet I reap the rewards. And by that measure, a "free" education isn't free, since I invested in it by paying taxes and working to obtain it through study. Therefore, I should appreciate it just as much as an education someone bought outright with their own cash. We both personally invested in it. Consider your original point refuted, by your own statements.
I've qualified my worth to society with the metric I originally used: I have the skills and resources to become a citizen in any country on earth. The free market is not the only arbiter of worth, many of the people that the world would consider the most worthy never participated in any free markets to any great extent. Jesus, Buddha, you know, people whose names we actually remember thousands of years later. There are plenty of formal and informal systems for measuring worth that do not rely on the free market. We know with fair accuracy, for instance, which "American Idols" society considers the most worthy, before we ever buy a thing from them.
As for the union workers, why are their goals unreasonable? They have conceded on EVERY point except the right to bargain collectively. But they shouldn't have: Wisconsin's budget problems are entirely due to tax cuts for the wealthy. In fact, the budget shortfall and tax cuts are both on the order of ~$140 million. Now that everyone is broke, the wealthy chickens just take their ill-gotten gains to Switzerland, and leave us to rot while they summer in exclusive resorts where they don't even have to acknowledge that poverty exists.
Why is it, when we question CEO pay, they tell us, "You have to pay if you want to get and keep the best." But then they turn around and tell us that the answer to failing schools is to pay teachers less. Hypocrisy.
Being that my mother and I were abandoned in Greece by my stepfather when I was sixteen, and I had to work under the table as a cook to get enough money to get back to the States, then had to work to get my GED, then work throughout my state university education, no, you didn't hit anywhere close to the mark.
Lovely anecdotes, all of them, but they in no way prove your idea. You just seem to drop back to "but everyone knows it!" in shear amazement that anyone would dispute you, but you can't say why you believe it, just that you do, and that anecdotally, some of your personal experiences seem to back up that belief.
I will leave you with this: your life experiences and friends are not a random sample, which is why personal anecdotes are meaningless.
So the guy who worked for his education, but got nothing out of it appreciates it more than the guy who got it handed to him, and then made millions out of it. Okay, got it. I think you are full of shit, and I think you know it, but are too proud to admit you wrote something you thought was "common sense" that is actually stupid and contra-factual.
You need to be less vague, I have no idea what you consider to be a strawman, or what you think smelch did or did not suggest. State your case, or GTFO.
I dunno, you got something better to back up the original assertion? The guy who makes an outrageous claim should be the one to back it up with some proof. What is presented without proof can be dismissed without proof, therefore, I am not the one who has to prove anything. I just have to say, "You haven't proved anything." and until the guy does, we can all consider his comments worthless. That's just how it works, you present proof of your claim, or you don't make a claim. I don't have to prove your claim false if you haven't even supported it.
You and the other Teatards and liberturds are trying to change things so you don't have to pay, all the while claiming that this system called the United States of America, is unfair. While you continue to reap the rewards of being here, you whine about having to pay.
The rich get more from our society, by definition. You can't get rich living on a deserted island, you need the cooperation of others. You can't get rich living in Somalia, where there is no government. You can get rich if you are a part of a society, and if that society rewards you by giving you freedoms you wouldn't have as an individual (such as a currency, protection from crime, the ability to travel quickly and safely, a stable money supply that encourages investment, and a stable society that lets you plan for your future) then you should pay. If it rewards you more than others who work just as hard but haven't been as lucky or as privileged, then you should pay more.
You seem to think that if two guys go into a restaurant (our society), where one guy gets a fillet Mignon with lobster tail, and the other guy gets a salad, the guy who got a salad should pay more. Huh? Actually, you seem to think the guy who gets the fancy dinner shouldn't have to pay at all, after all, he never agreed to pay before the dinner was served, right? Ludicrous.
I have lived and worked in several countries, I never took citizenship there, but I could have.
You see, digi, that's what Democracy does. It's a dynamic system put into motion and maintained by your fellow man freely. When you go through the free market, you are circumventing democracy by forcing money out of the starving, desperate man and into the hands of another, who did not work for it.
I don't have access to their money, I pay more in taxes than I take from the system. And it isn't their money. When you pay for something, the money you used to pay for that thing is no longer yours. You pay for your citizenship, the money isn't yours anymore. If you don't want to pay, shop around for a better deal! But don't try to take the services, then claim you don't have to pay. That is called being a leach.
It's called "sour grapes." The guy who doesn't have shit, but had to work for it, says "those grapes those rich guys have and didn't work for must be pretty sour, and I'm glad I don't have them. " See Aesop.
So if someone gives me a free lunch, it isn't free, because they had to pay for it?
By that loony-tunes measure, even the things you mention aren't free: 1.) The universe: you may not have to pay for it, but the universe itself sure had to work to provide you with its bounty. The big bang wasn't easy, and in the end, it will pay for it all with heat death 2.) The Sun pays in solar wind and fusion. Again, it will spend all its resources and die. 3.) The Earth, again, not free by your measure, you didn't pay, but think of all those asteroids and comets that GAVE THEIR LIVES to create the Earth. 4.) Light costs money! How do you see at night? I use lightbulbs, and they cost money 4.) Gravity. You pay for this with wrinkles and a saggy sack (if you are a guy) or saggy jubs (if you are a woman, or a fat guy)
All you have shown us is that if you redefine words, they mean whatever you want them to mean. Isn't language fun?
But you didn't answer the question. WHO would appreciate their education more, the ivy league scion of wealth, whose education, though paid for, got him a million dollar a year job, or the fellow who paid for his own education and now has $100,000 in debt and no job to show for it?
So, who would you say appreciates their education more, someone who got their prep school and ivy league education paid for by daddy, and then went on to a million a year job on Wall Street, or someone who had to work for their education, and now has a hundred thousand in debt and no job?
You got that backwards. You see, we've got this going concern here, called the USA. Some people want to partake of the benefits of living here without paying for them. They are the people who want to take from others. Most of us are happy to pay our bills. If I thought I was getting a bad deal, I would do what I always do when I think I'm getting a bad deal: I would go shop somewhere else. You see, I am not a pathetic leach. I have something to contribute to society, both financially in terms of investments and in terms of my skills. Therefore, I can go anywhere in the world, and become a citizen. Are you a useful contributing member of society? Then you could go anywhere too.
Just because you were born here does not give you the right to run the place. You don't get to unilaterally change the rules just because you don't want to pay your fair share. Pay your taxes and shut up, or GTFO, you parasite.
There's no such thing as a free education to the true sense of the word. Either you end up directly paying for it, or indirectly through taxation. But don't delude yourself thinking education is "free" and the professors are donating their time 24/7 without a paycheck.
I hate this stupid redefinition of the word free. "Well, I was given this thing, and I personally did not have to pay a dime, but SOMEONE had to pay for it, and therefore it is not free." How do you not see how utterly moronic this is? Why do we have the word free at all, if nothing is "really" free? What you are doing is no more than stupid ideological rhetorical douchebaggery. Knock it off.
I had to work for my degree. I appreciate it more than the people I have met who didn't have to work for it.
How do you know? Seriously, I don't think you realize how dumb it sounds when you say something like that. I can only imagine the conversation, "So, Bob, on a scale of one to ten, how much do you appreciate your education? Also on a scale of one to ten, how hard did you have to work for it?" These things are subjective. I mean really, did you actually ask your friends questions such as these? Who brought it up? Did your friends volunteer the information, or did you have to ask?
Facts. Do you know what they are? Jeremiah asked you to support your ideological thesis with a statement of fact, and you reply with more opinion. You think that people who received a free education seldom appreciate it as much as one who had to earn and pay for that education. Okay. I think that is an utterly stupid statement, with no basis in fact, even with the qualifiers. I will state my opinion: people appreciate their education for what it brings them, not for what it cost, because everyone has to work hard to become educated.
I don't think you have any factual evidence to back up your outrageous claims, which you make as though they were noncontroversial. Please, if you want to make extraordinary claims, you need to provide extraordinary proof. And just saying "Well, everyone knows that you appreciate what you work for more than what is given to you"is bullshit. That bit of "common sense" wisdom has no basis in fact, as far as I know. Besides, what does it mean to "work for" your education? Will someone who is not so smart and must study hard appreciate their knowledge more than someone who is brilliant and can coast through all their classes?
This whole "You appreciate what you work for" meme was more than likely started by people who had everything handed to them, "well, yes, my Daddy Morebucks paid for everything for me, but I'm sure you appreciate what little you have far more, because you had to work for it." Yeah, right. Or maybe it's just sour grapes on the part of people who had to work for everything. Whatever it is, it is not factual or sensible, despite the fact the "everyone knows" it is true.
Also, are you the slashdot poster known as "Archangel Michael?" The sig is the same, but "ArhcAngel" Really?
Slashdot Mirror
Because, either people who have education given to them appreciate it, on average, or they don't. That is what is known as a "fact" which is not an opinion. Now, you are allowed to have contrafactual opinions around me, but you don't get to have them around me and have me stay quiet about my opinion, which is that your opinions are full of shit. See how that works?
Wow. He did not believe that the free market knows best, as demonstrated from the quotes! He thought of a free market differently than you do, he recognized that a market needs regulations in order to stay free. His work must be understood in the context of mercantilism, which he disagreed with, but he did not disagree with government regulation in general.
However, I will concede the point that education costs money, and while an education may be free to the individual, society still pays the cost. And when education is free, it is free regardless of whether the outcome involves the recipient of the education getting a better job. Finally, as I mentioned, education is a positive externality, and a free market will not allocate enough resources towards education.
What I will not concede, however, is that there exists any rational adult who is confused on what the term "free education" means. I highly doubt anyone believes teacher's pay and the cost of schools and books just materialize out of thin air, so your entire diatribe against free education is meaningless. Anyone who is capable of understanding that already does. You just wasted everyone's time in order to attempt to denigrate the role of government in education. At least you walked it back into the realm of sanity by the end, so I guess my work here is done. See you next time!
Nobody can quantify whether an investment is really worth it before thy make it, it is only after the fact that you know whether it was worth it, but that does not stop us from making investments. And investing in a citizens education benefits everyone. The government gets more tax income from educated people, and you get better goods and services. Because everyone benefits, everyone should help pay. Education is a positive externality, it can not be rationed correctly by the free market, because a market can not handle externalities, good or bad.
Yes, but some things require moral judgments, like cheating. It is my business when people con others. That is what is meant by the phrase "freedom isn't free." and it illustrates the difference between freedom and license. License is "I get to do whatever I want, without cost to me," while freedom implies two things: one, you will give others the same freedoms, even if that inconveniences you, and second, that as part of the price of the defense of your freedoms, you will defend the freedoms of others. And so, when criminals take over our economic and political system in order to enrich themselves, I fight it.
But it isn't the past couple of years. It is the past thirty or forty. ALL the newly created wealth has gone to the top, not to the people who created it. You didn't read the link, did you? I know because you ask a question that is answered there. I believe the answer you seek can be found towards the bottom, in the section titled "your loss, their gain." And both the math and underlying facts are impeccable. Here, I'll post the link again so you can educate yourself some more:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
You see, the bottom sixty percent have not seen any increase in spending power in the last thirty years. None. All that wealth was taken by the very top.
Ah, it looks like you forgot to multiply that 27 million by the 15,000 households who make that much.
Anyway, you say you are okay with that level of income disparity, even knowing that their wealth came at our expense? All the increase in GDP over the last thirty years went to them, and you think that is because they deserve it? What is the rationale for the majority to even participate in such a system, where their hard work is not rewarded? I rising tide, it appears, does not lift all ships.
Ahahaha, oh my. Did you just mention Adam Smith? Have you read "Wealth of Nations?" No, don't answer that. I know you haven't. Let me quote some Adfam Smith to you, my friend, and we will see how long it takes for you to start calling him a commie. I guarantee after I am done here, you will never attempt to drop that name again.
"Laws and government may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor, and to preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence. The government and laws hinder the poor from ever acquiring the wealth by violence which they would otherwise exert on the rich; they tell them they must either continue poor or acquire wealth in the same manner as they did."
You like that one? I'm just getting started. This next one is a bit of a long passage, but oh so worth the read:
"His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.
His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society. The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin.
Their superiority over the country gentleman is, not so much in their knowledge of the public interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple but honest conviction, that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public.
To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens.
To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."
Good stuff, huh? He is saying that his "invisible hand" only applies to land owners and laborers (the first two of his three class
Look, it doesn't matter if SOMEONE had to pay for it, what makes it FREE is that I did not have to pay for it. You can't just redefine what the word "free" means for ideological purposes.
Wait, doesn't the person getting help with education generally pay taxes as well? And won't a higher education help them make more money, and pay more in taxes? Isn't this just an investment on the part of the government? Taxes aren't stealing, they are the price you pay to live in the society you want to live in. As long as the majority of us want to pay taxes, you will have to pay taxes too, as long as you want to live here. Remember, citizenship isn't free, and neither is freedom. You want to live here? You have to pay for the privilege. You don't want to pay? Fine, but you don't get to freeload here, go be a leach someplace else.
Ah the old scare quote around injustices. When the rich steal from the poor, it is business as usual. When we try to take back what was stolen, then WE are the thieves? Socialist systems have plenty of objective measures of worth, while the free market does not. There is no difference, as far as the free market is concerned, between a man who makes a million honestly, and one who makes it through theft. The free market makes no moral judgments.
"I got a free education!"
"No, you didn't, someone had to pay for it."
"Well, it as free to me. And it was free from the government's point of view, too, because the money they invested in me will be more than repaid by the increased taxes I will pay, because I am making more money as an educated worker than an uneducated one. Win-win!"
"Yes, but the rich lose because when everyone educates themselves, there are no more poor desperate people to take advantage of. So it isn't free, the rich lose out!"
"Ah. Now I understand what REALLY you mean by 'not free'"
Read about Project Cybersyn, a Chilean project from 1970, started by Salvadore Allende that replaced price signals and allowed a socialist economy to work as efficiently as a capitalist one. Right after it was invented, we killed Allende and installed Pinochet, a brutal dictator.
"We" do not live in a world of materialism and worldly possessions. You do. Most people are not money centric, or driven by the profit motive. Most people are more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity, because we are genetically predisposed to support cooperation and punish injustice and unfairness, because that is the most effective strategy. Look up games theory, and such experimental games as the dictator game. Now try to explain the outcomes using the standard economic model of man as a rational and entirely self interested actor. You can't.
I never said the rich got rich for no reason, I am saying, they got rich by buying legislation, having family money and rich friends, and being taught to have no sympathy for the little people. The rich, in general, do not "bring things" to society. They say, "If you want to eat, you work for me." and then the actual engineers and factory workers bring something to society, while the rich sit back and get fat off their investments, with very little risk, as we have proved we will always bail them out and refrain from charging them with crimes, even when the things they bring to the table are all outright fraud.
As for the rich giving back to society, you forget the opportunity cost. You compare "Having the rich around" to "having nothing" when there are better options, like all of us having a little more and them having a little less. Income inequality in this country is a crime against humanity. Here is a handy chart, showing how screwed we really are.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
But you already knew that, and you think that kind of disparity is perfectly fair, don't you?
Thank you for so eloquently making my point.
Those are all things that we personally never had any investment in, yet reap the rewards for their existence.
Things like, a free lunch? I never invested in it personally. yet I reap the rewards. And by that measure, a "free" education isn't free, since I invested in it by paying taxes and working to obtain it through study. Therefore, I should appreciate it just as much as an education someone bought outright with their own cash. We both personally invested in it. Consider your original point refuted, by your own statements.
I've qualified my worth to society with the metric I originally used: I have the skills and resources to become a citizen in any country on earth. The free market is not the only arbiter of worth, many of the people that the world would consider the most worthy never participated in any free markets to any great extent. Jesus, Buddha, you know, people whose names we actually remember thousands of years later. There are plenty of formal and informal systems for measuring worth that do not rely on the free market. We know with fair accuracy, for instance, which "American Idols" society considers the most worthy, before we ever buy a thing from them.
As for the union workers, why are their goals unreasonable? They have conceded on EVERY point except the right to bargain collectively. But they shouldn't have: Wisconsin's budget problems are entirely due to tax cuts for the wealthy. In fact, the budget shortfall and tax cuts are both on the order of ~$140 million. Now that everyone is broke, the wealthy chickens just take their ill-gotten gains to Switzerland, and leave us to rot while they summer in exclusive resorts where they don't even have to acknowledge that poverty exists.
Why is it, when we question CEO pay, they tell us, "You have to pay if you want to get and keep the best." But then they turn around and tell us that the answer to failing schools is to pay teachers less. Hypocrisy.
Being that my mother and I were abandoned in Greece by my stepfather when I was sixteen, and I had to work under the table as a cook to get enough money to get back to the States, then had to work to get my GED, then work throughout my state university education, no, you didn't hit anywhere close to the mark.
Lovely anecdotes, all of them, but they in no way prove your idea. You just seem to drop back to "but everyone knows it!" in shear amazement that anyone would dispute you, but you can't say why you believe it, just that you do, and that anecdotally, some of your personal experiences seem to back up that belief.
I will leave you with this: your life experiences and friends are not a random sample, which is why personal anecdotes are meaningless.
So the guy who worked for his education, but got nothing out of it appreciates it more than the guy who got it handed to him, and then made millions out of it. Okay, got it. I think you are full of shit, and I think you know it, but are too proud to admit you wrote something you thought was "common sense" that is actually stupid and contra-factual.
You need to be less vague, I have no idea what you consider to be a strawman, or what you think smelch did or did not suggest. State your case, or GTFO.
I dunno, you got something better to back up the original assertion? The guy who makes an outrageous claim should be the one to back it up with some proof. What is presented without proof can be dismissed without proof, therefore, I am not the one who has to prove anything. I just have to say, "You haven't proved anything." and until the guy does, we can all consider his comments worthless. That's just how it works, you present proof of your claim, or you don't make a claim. I don't have to prove your claim false if you haven't even supported it.
You and the other Teatards and liberturds are trying to change things so you don't have to pay, all the while claiming that this system called the United States of America, is unfair. While you continue to reap the rewards of being here, you whine about having to pay.
The rich get more from our society, by definition. You can't get rich living on a deserted island, you need the cooperation of others. You can't get rich living in Somalia, where there is no government. You can get rich if you are a part of a society, and if that society rewards you by giving you freedoms you wouldn't have as an individual (such as a currency, protection from crime, the ability to travel quickly and safely, a stable money supply that encourages investment, and a stable society that lets you plan for your future) then you should pay. If it rewards you more than others who work just as hard but haven't been as lucky or as privileged, then you should pay more.
You seem to think that if two guys go into a restaurant (our society), where one guy gets a fillet Mignon with lobster tail, and the other guy gets a salad, the guy who got a salad should pay more. Huh? Actually, you seem to think the guy who gets the fancy dinner shouldn't have to pay at all, after all, he never agreed to pay before the dinner was served, right? Ludicrous.
I have lived and worked in several countries, I never took citizenship there, but I could have.
You see, digi, that's what Democracy does. It's a dynamic system put into motion and maintained by your fellow man freely. When you go through the free market, you are circumventing democracy by forcing money out of the starving, desperate man and into the hands of another, who did not work for it.
I don't have access to their money, I pay more in taxes than I take from the system. And it isn't their money. When you pay for something, the money you used to pay for that thing is no longer yours. You pay for your citizenship, the money isn't yours anymore. If you don't want to pay, shop around for a better deal! But don't try to take the services, then claim you don't have to pay. That is called being a leach.
It's called "sour grapes." The guy who doesn't have shit, but had to work for it, says "those grapes those rich guys have and didn't work for must be pretty sour, and I'm glad I don't have them. " See Aesop.
So if someone gives me a free lunch, it isn't free, because they had to pay for it?
By that loony-tunes measure, even the things you mention aren't free:
1.) The universe: you may not have to pay for it, but the universe itself sure had to work to provide you with its bounty. The big bang wasn't easy, and in the end, it will pay for it all with heat death
2.) The Sun pays in solar wind and fusion. Again, it will spend all its resources and die.
3.) The Earth, again, not free by your measure, you didn't pay, but think of all those asteroids and comets that GAVE THEIR LIVES to create the Earth.
4.) Light costs money! How do you see at night? I use lightbulbs, and they cost money
4.) Gravity. You pay for this with wrinkles and a saggy sack (if you are a guy) or saggy jubs (if you are a woman, or a fat guy)
All you have shown us is that if you redefine words, they mean whatever you want them to mean. Isn't language fun?
But you didn't answer the question. WHO would appreciate their education more, the ivy league scion of wealth, whose education, though paid for, got him a million dollar a year job, or the fellow who paid for his own education and now has $100,000 in debt and no job to show for it?
So, who would you say appreciates their education more, someone who got their prep school and ivy league education paid for by daddy, and then went on to a million a year job on Wall Street, or someone who had to work for their education, and now has a hundred thousand in debt and no job?
lgw, we get it, you can only hurl epithets rather than debate. When you are ready to have an adult discussion, you know where to find me.
You got that backwards. You see, we've got this going concern here, called the USA. Some people want to partake of the benefits of living here without paying for them. They are the people who want to take from others. Most of us are happy to pay our bills. If I thought I was getting a bad deal, I would do what I always do when I think I'm getting a bad deal: I would go shop somewhere else. You see, I am not a pathetic leach. I have something to contribute to society, both financially in terms of investments and in terms of my skills. Therefore, I can go anywhere in the world, and become a citizen. Are you a useful contributing member of society? Then you could go anywhere too.
Just because you were born here does not give you the right to run the place. You don't get to unilaterally change the rules just because you don't want to pay your fair share. Pay your taxes and shut up, or GTFO, you parasite.
There's no such thing as a free education to the true sense of the word. Either you end up directly paying for it, or indirectly through taxation. But don't delude yourself thinking education is "free" and the professors are donating their time 24/7 without a paycheck.
I hate this stupid redefinition of the word free. "Well, I was given this thing, and I personally did not have to pay a dime, but SOMEONE had to pay for it, and therefore it is not free." How do you not see how utterly moronic this is? Why do we have the word free at all, if nothing is "really" free? What you are doing is no more than stupid ideological rhetorical douchebaggery. Knock it off.
I had to work for my degree. I appreciate it more than the people I have met who didn't have to work for it.
How do you know? Seriously, I don't think you realize how dumb it sounds when you say something like that. I can only imagine the conversation, "So, Bob, on a scale of one to ten, how much do you appreciate your education? Also on a scale of one to ten, how hard did you have to work for it?" These things are subjective. I mean really, did you actually ask your friends questions such as these? Who brought it up? Did your friends volunteer the information, or did you have to ask?
Facts. Do you know what they are? Jeremiah asked you to support your ideological thesis with a statement of fact, and you reply with more opinion. You think that people who received a free education seldom appreciate it as much as one who had to earn and pay for that education. Okay. I think that is an utterly stupid statement, with no basis in fact, even with the qualifiers. I will state my opinion: people appreciate their education for what it brings them, not for what it cost, because everyone has to work hard to become educated.
I don't think you have any factual evidence to back up your outrageous claims, which you make as though they were noncontroversial. Please, if you want to make extraordinary claims, you need to provide extraordinary proof. And just saying "Well, everyone knows that you appreciate what you work for more than what is given to you"is bullshit. That bit of "common sense" wisdom has no basis in fact, as far as I know. Besides, what does it mean to "work for" your education? Will someone who is not so smart and must study hard appreciate their knowledge more than someone who is brilliant and can coast through all their classes?
This whole "You appreciate what you work for" meme was more than likely started by people who had everything handed to them, "well, yes, my Daddy Morebucks paid for everything for me, but I'm sure you appreciate what little you have far more, because you had to work for it." Yeah, right. Or maybe it's just sour grapes on the part of people who had to work for everything. Whatever it is, it is not factual or sensible, despite the fact the "everyone knows" it is true.
Also, are you the slashdot poster known as "Archangel Michael?" The sig is the same, but "ArhcAngel" Really?