If we can picture a thing that exists without being created, we have arrived at a picture of the universe without God. Why place the uncaused cause one step removed from our experience of the universe? And what does being physical or not have to do with anything? The idea that physical things need a cause, which can include non physical things that don't need a cause, is simply ludicrous.
The myth that America is a place where anyone can be happy and free if they want to is simply a self serving excuse. It is a myth successful people tell themselves. No one wants to believe they got where they are through unfair advantage. Everyone loves to think they got where they are through excellence. For some people, believing the myth seems to work, and they can not understand why others do not believe the myth. Others don't believe it because the myth did not work for them. They are not members of the dominant culture, and so the myth can not work for them. One of the prime advantages of being in the dominant culture is that the dominant culture's myths do work for you, and no one in the dominant culture is going to question the myth. When subcultures question the myth, the dominant culture simply tells them it didn't work for them because they are inferior.
Anyway, I'm glad the myth worked for you and you will accept no questions regarding its efficiency for others. Sounds like you have a happy and fulfilling life, that's great. I don't want tot take that away from anyone. I would just like it to be available to everyone. Systematically, it isn't.
We need people doing the shitty jobs in our system. If everyone successfully followed the American Dream, society would collapse. We would have all owners and no workers. In order for the myth to work for some people, it absolutely must fail for others.
Let me try to clarify my point: we no longer have the option of going off into the wild and saying 'Sayonara, suckers!' to society. That was our ultimate defense against coercion and tyranny, anyone could make it all on their own. We can not do that anymore, society has usurped all the available hunting/gathering lands. And so, because society has not left us with any options besides being members of society, it must see to our basic needs or stand accused of being based on tyranny and coercion.
The idea that, sans medical care all the basics are achievable with a job completely misses the point. If the vast majority of people must work for someone else in order to survive, society is based on coercion, "You'll take the job we offer and like it, or you'll starve."
Yes, we have an incredibly inefficient medical system here in the US. We spend twice as much per capita as the next most expensive system. And for that astronomical sum, we get very mediocre health care outcomes. We're about 37th worldwide, which places us squarely in second world territory and not amongst the other industrialized nations at all.
However, denying health care to our citizens until this is fixed is not a workable solution. It just hides the true cost. We need to make it painfully obvious how bad things are so that people will try to fix things. If we can't afford health care for everyone, we have a serious problem. It is obscene for so called healers to demand huge profits for their services, it is tantamount to holding a gun to someone's head and saying, pay me, or I might pull the trigger. Or I might not. Or maybe, you pay me and I still pull the trigger. You never know. But you still have to pay me. There is simply no way for a free market to arbitrate a transaction like that in a manner that is equitable and fair to both parties, the imbalance of information is simply too large for the free market to work.
This guy is not a teabagger despite the fact that he hates immigrants. He isn't a liberal despite the fact that he likes the environment. He is a dead crazy guy because he took hostages. He didn't need any help from political partisans to achieve his stunning degree of lunacy, I'm pretty sure he got there all on his own.
I have a different image of ACID on Windows than they do.
Is it the image of Bill Gates in an Easter bunny outfit trying to force Steve Ballmer into a large cast iron kettle filled with Skittles and baby mice? 'Cause that's the image I have of ACID on Windows...
I think that Marx's fuzzy notion of a vanguard had the potential to contradict the point he was making, and that this contradiction was amplified in Leninism,
That was why I brought up the point.:)
My sense is that a democratic socialism can only happen when most people want it to happen, and that's a long, gradual process that, ironically, the Russian Revolution set back.
There is no other way. The trick is to explain to the current elite why it is in their best interest to stand as equals with the rest of us. When you are among equals, you don't have to constantly watch your back.
I do not believe in equality of outcome. Some people are more productive than others. People actually enjoy seeing real excellence and hard work rewarded, when the rewards are proportional to the risk and effort.
But we should ensure that everyone has the basics: clean water, food, shelter, and medical care. We can't be hunter gatherers anymore. We need to live in society. Since we do not have the option of simply running off into the woods and fending for ourselves, society owes us that opportunity it took away from us, basic survival. If people do not have that guaranteed minimum, then any transaction relating to survival becomes coercive, and people become unfree.
Google 'fairness reciprocity economic experiments' or look up games theory on wikipedia. I'm not talking out my ass here, I'm basing my ideas on recent scientific evidence.
You see, we've spent the last 100,000 to a million years killing or shunning non cooperators. Won't play along? You don't get to breed. And so, cooperating is evolutionarily advantageous. We are born with that innate sense of fairness because it is a danger sense. Our genes tell us, if you don't act fairly, someone is likely to kill you.
I define 'good people' very simply, by the golden rule (or the platinum rule if you prefer: do unto others as you would have them do if you were in their shoes. That formulation takes into account, say, masochists who might like things I don't.)
I'm playing it safe and talking about people who make over a million a year. Actually, since I'm concerned with money's ability to control other people's lives, I'm not so concerned about income, but wealth. If you are in the top 1% of wealth holders, then you are 'wealthy' in my book.
In my opinion, most people don't need laws, but a few people really, really need them, and society has to perform a balancing act between limiting the freedoms of the basically good majority, and protecting them from the small minority of human predators.
If everyone in the world had food, shelter, clean water, and medical care, I would not care how much more some had than others. Until that time, the wealth inequality we have is absolutely obscene.
Yes. When the poor have a really crappy little apartment, enough boring, bland and nutritious food to eat, clean water, and medical care, that's all they get without working for it.
If people do not have those things, guaranteed, then they are not free. Anyone who has those things to offer can control them. Before we domesticated ourselves, anyone had a decent shot of making it on their own. Not anymore, we need society. So, society must provide for us, as it has usurped our ability to hunt and gather for ourselves, and we simply can't go back to that without killing off 90% of us.
If we give people all the basic necessities, guaranteed, then all transactions really are voluntary. Otherwise, transactions relating to survival are coercive. "Do what I say or starve" is no different than "Do what I say or I pull the trigger."
1. No, it wasn't because that is what I truly believe that the money behind the 'small government' movement wants, and that is the dead end road that 'small government' types are driving us down. That is the end result.
2. You missed the 'nearly' in front of 'invariably,' didn't you? Honest mistake, I guess.
3. People are not all alike. Some will put up with quite a bit before they start the revolution. Others think it fair to steal from someone making twelve cents an hour more than them. And the rich are not so concerned about theft, they are insured and protected by private security. It's the middle class who take the hit.
4. Plenty of things in life are arbitrary, but fair nonetheless. And arbitrary does not mean that it can be arbitrarily changed, I think you will find broad consensus that those making over a million a year are rich. And my definition, the top one percent, is not arbitrary at all. It's pretty concrete. You could claim the choice of 1% is arbitrary, but then we are getting into meaningless semantics. Words mean only what people agree they mean anyway, and you are basically arguing that the word 'rich' has no real fixed meaning. Take it up with Websters.
How did Marx feel about anarchists such as Proudhon? What does the word 'vanguard' mean in Marxist philosophy? Did he use it, or was that a latter invention?
Huh, I thought government reduced crime by catching and incarcerating criminals, removing them from the population and providing a disincentive for other criminals. But then again, I also thought government kept free markets free by enforcing rules and punishing unfairness so that the richest could not unfairly dominate and control said markets like they used to do back in the bad old days of lassez faire. So yeah, I don't think we're on the same page at all.
Suffice it to say, I'm no longer interested in hearing anything you have to say about government. You hate it, I get it. Yet I imagine you still choose to live with one rather than go off and form your own society, don't you find that a bit hypocritical?
Now, I can understand not wanting to live in a society with a government. Some people are just hermits. But it sounds like you really don't want anyone to have a government. Why would that be? Well, the primary purpose of government is for the weak to protect themselves from exploitation by the strong. So, my natural assumption is that there is one simple reason that people want to force everyone to stop using governments to protect themselves: they want to exploit those people.
Just as a thought experiment, would you feel differently if you were the victim of a serious crime? It sounds as though you simply do not care if the guilty are caught and punished. You are right, that is not the position that most people have. Maybe you could explain why you hold such a seemingly self-endangering position?
No, in fact, most people are not greedy and selfish, recent economic experiments have shown that people value fairness and reciprocity over self interest.
If an elected government is full of stupid, evil, greedy people, who is really at fault?
How is taking taxes and giving some to the poor trampling your rights? Are you being held here against your will? Think of society like a retail establishment that sells package deals. You take the deal a society offers you, or you shop around for something better. You wouldn't walk into a Kentucky Fried Chicken and demand a Whopper for five cents, and then complain they were trampling your rights when they laughed at you, would you? If you don't like the deal, you are free to look elsewhere for a better one.
I don't want to remove all economic inequality, I want to remove economic inequity. Excellence and hard work should be rewarded, but fooling people into thinking you are excellent and hard working should not be. And why should pure luck be rewarded? Shouldn't good fortune be shared? Quite frankly, if you are selfish and don't feel like sharing your good fortune, how are you any benefit to society, and why should you be allowed to participate?
I think maybe we have different ideas about what 'fair' means. I don't think it is fair for 10% of the population to control 90% of the wealth, for instance. In such a society, there is no way that everyone is treated as equals and no way that everyone has the same political, economic, or civil rights. Would you or I have gotten the same light handed treatment that, say, Lindsey Lohan got for stealing an SUV, driving around intoxicated, and crashing it into an innocent bystander? Nope, justice really means 'just us rich folk.' How many Americans grow up with dozens of fabulously wealthy friends who are willing to loan us money for our loopy business schemes that have failed dozens of times in the past? You and I don't, But George W. Bush sure did.
We have two Americas now. The America of Wall Street CEOs that makes up 90% of the physical wealth of the country, and the America of the rest of us, a measly 10% split amongst the bottom 90%. They get bailouts and tax breaks, we get failing infrastructure.
That isn't what I meant, and even here in America you can not be forced to testify against yourself. But are you saying that the Netherlands police can not obtain a warrant to search your premises or tap your phones? I've never heard of anything like that before in any civilized country in the world.
I would say that it is fair to ensure that everyone gets at the bare minimum, clean water, enough to eat, shelter, and free medical care. If you want more than that, work for it. I don't think everyone should be rewarded equally, people who do more should get more.
But what is 'more?' If it were only tangible things like mansions and yachts, I would be fine with that. But what more really means, beyond a certain point, is more ability to control other people's lives, and that is not fair. Just because you are excellent at deciding what to invest in should not give you more control over other people's lives and livelihood.
You can't really use Russia as an example of socialism, as they didn't have that style of governemt. They were an oligarchy. Anyone can claim to be anything they like, for example, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is neither democratic, nor a republic. Why not use real examples of socialism, like most of Europe?
I'd say your theory about our education system is off the mark. I certainly don't recall schools teaching me anything like the lessons you claim they teach. I recall being taught that if you work hard, you will succede, but that does not appear to be true for most people. Hard work is important, but going to the right schools and knowing the right people will make you a success even without the hard work, and hard work without luck or contacts just leads to a long life slaving for someone else.
A government system must not assume corruption on the part of all human beings, lest it encourage just that. We must recognize that most people are not corrupt. In fact, most people value fairness and reciprocity over their own self interest. Only when they see that everyone around them is acting unfairly will most people begin to act unfairly themselves, in self defense.
The problem is and always has been the sociopaths who have faulty empathy and no capability for remorse. The vast majority of people do not need laws in order to be good people. They just need the ability to punish unfairness. And in a vastly unequal society, the poor simply don't have the ability to punish the rich when the rich act unfairly. They aren't even part of the same society. The rich can do whatever they like to the poor.
This is the problem. When some in society can impact the lives of others without being impacted themselves, they do not have to take the interests of the others into account. The power of the rich insulates them from even having to understand or empathize with the poor. The rich tell themselves a comforting myth, and no one has the power to stand up and make them understand that their myth is a lie: they did not achieve their position through excellence alone, but through systematic unfairness they took advantage of.
You have made quite an extrapolation from a very specific quote.
Defense of property is not the only function of government and no one suggests that it should be, this is a poor premise to start from.
The rich do not nearly invariably favor small government. Just like everyone else, they favor big government when they think it works in their favor.
The more desperate the have-nots are the more likely they are to do something drastic, like steal from the "have's".
Your definition of "truly rich" is arbitrary. Many people in the world and this country consider a person making $100k plus as "very rich".
We may not be genius saints, but we do have some principals, such as an innate sense of fairness. We do not take from other what we would not have them take from us if our positions were reversed. You don't have to assume that you will be rich someday to see that taking from them what they have earned is wrong.
Big or small government does not invariably benefit the poor with regard to property or anything else. Those who are for small government would probably argue that it hurts the poor more often than it helps.
There are many, such as myself, who do not think that they will ever be rich. However, I do not believe that makes me a failure, and I do not begrudge those who will be rich. So long as they have behaved legally and hopefully ethically, their success is deserved. The fact that some may not behave ethically is not justification to take from them all.
You may think the middle class is being "fooled", but I think you give them too little credit. You believe they are being fooled because otherwise they would agree with your beliefs. Yet a reasonable person can see flaws with your beliefs, as I have enumerated. You may want to argue over the points, but they are at least debatable. They don't require anyone be "fooled" to believe them.
If your viewpoint really is that the middle and lower class should rise up and take from the rich because they have that power and it would benefit them (they have license to do so in a democracy), then I find your sig pretty ironic.
1. I'm glad you agree with my point. 2. We agree here, too. The rich favor big government for the rich, and small government for everyone else. As the rich make up only 1%, I'd say they generally want smaller government. 3. Are you simply noting the most obvious implications of what I said and repeating them in order to curry favor with me? Yes, this is exactly the major problem with wealth disparity, thanks. 4. My definition is not arbitrary. When the top 10% own 90% of the material wealth, I think that dividing line is crystal clear. 5. Taking something that someone originally stole from you is not wrong. The wealthy have been waging class war on us, and stealing the wealth we created. 6. Congratulations. You've made your first coherent point in the first half of this item. Which also negates the second half. If big government is no guarantee the poor will be helped, small government is no guarantee either. You say people argue that small government will help the poor, but on the most crucial point you remain silent: what are those arguments? 7. I agree completely, and let me add that I believe most people actually want to see excellence rewarded, even if they are not the recipient. We do not want excellence punished, but we do want unfairness punished. 8. I believe they are being fooled because they are acting neither according to any coherent principles they espouse, nor according to their own self interests.
The middle and lower class should rise up and take back what they created with their ingenuity and labor. Idly sitting in mansions investing money that you can not really lose does not create wealth. Work creates wealth.
My sig is a reminder that freedom isn't free. It takes work, and sacrifice. It is more than just license. Freedom means defending those whose freedoms are endangered.
Another example of the extreme hypocrisy of the owning class: welfare for me, lassez faire capitalism for you. In fact, I think you will find that the most vocal supporters of the free market actually desire anything but.
I disagree with warrantless wiretapping, but I do like the ability to gather information about crimes. Have you thought about the consequences of your position? How would you handle prosecution of crimes without any covert investigation?
Subpoena of evidence is one of the most important powers that a civilized society uses to maintain justice. If that power is being abused, it should be corrected, but never done away with. Courts should always be able to compel evidence when necessary to decide a case. Otherwise, your society will soon be run by organized crime.
Slashdot Mirror
This one isn't a deep water rig, so it should be much easier to cap.
If we can picture a thing that exists without being created, we have arrived at a picture of the universe without God. Why place the uncaused cause one step removed from our experience of the universe? And what does being physical or not have to do with anything? The idea that physical things need a cause, which can include non physical things that don't need a cause, is simply ludicrous.
The myth that America is a place where anyone can be happy and free if they want to is simply a self serving excuse. It is a myth successful people tell themselves. No one wants to believe they got where they are through unfair advantage. Everyone loves to think they got where they are through excellence. For some people, believing the myth seems to work, and they can not understand why others do not believe the myth. Others don't believe it because the myth did not work for them. They are not members of the dominant culture, and so the myth can not work for them. One of the prime advantages of being in the dominant culture is that the dominant culture's myths do work for you, and no one in the dominant culture is going to question the myth. When subcultures question the myth, the dominant culture simply tells them it didn't work for them because they are inferior.
Anyway, I'm glad the myth worked for you and you will accept no questions regarding its efficiency for others. Sounds like you have a happy and fulfilling life, that's great. I don't want tot take that away from anyone. I would just like it to be available to everyone. Systematically, it isn't.
We need people doing the shitty jobs in our system. If everyone successfully followed the American Dream, society would collapse. We would have all owners and no workers. In order for the myth to work for some people, it absolutely must fail for others.
Welcome to the kinder, gentler tyranny.
Let me try to clarify my point: we no longer have the option of going off into the wild and saying 'Sayonara, suckers!' to society. That was our ultimate defense against coercion and tyranny, anyone could make it all on their own. We can not do that anymore, society has usurped all the available hunting/gathering lands. And so, because society has not left us with any options besides being members of society, it must see to our basic needs or stand accused of being based on tyranny and coercion.
The idea that, sans medical care all the basics are achievable with a job completely misses the point. If the vast majority of people must work for someone else in order to survive, society is based on coercion, "You'll take the job we offer and like it, or you'll starve."
Yes, we have an incredibly inefficient medical system here in the US. We spend twice as much per capita as the next most expensive system. And for that astronomical sum, we get very mediocre health care outcomes. We're about 37th worldwide, which places us squarely in second world territory and not amongst the other industrialized nations at all.
However, denying health care to our citizens until this is fixed is not a workable solution. It just hides the true cost. We need to make it painfully obvious how bad things are so that people will try to fix things. If we can't afford health care for everyone, we have a serious problem. It is obscene for so called healers to demand huge profits for their services, it is tantamount to holding a gun to someone's head and saying, pay me, or I might pull the trigger. Or I might not. Or maybe, you pay me and I still pull the trigger. You never know. But you still have to pay me. There is simply no way for a free market to arbitrate a transaction like that in a manner that is equitable and fair to both parties, the imbalance of information is simply too large for the free market to work.
http://wondermark.com/162/
You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals,
let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel
Why, they are practically cheerleaders for overpopulation! Not to mention that terrible documentary they did on roving gangs of bloodhounds...
This guy is not a teabagger despite the fact that he hates immigrants. He isn't a liberal despite the fact that he likes the environment. He is a dead crazy guy because he took hostages. He didn't need any help from political partisans to achieve his stunning degree of lunacy, I'm pretty sure he got there all on his own.
I have a different image of ACID on Windows than they do.
Is it the image of Bill Gates in an Easter bunny outfit trying to force Steve Ballmer into a large cast iron kettle filled with Skittles and baby mice? 'Cause that's the image I have of ACID on Windows...
I think that Marx's fuzzy notion of a vanguard had the potential to contradict the point he was making, and that this contradiction was amplified in Leninism,
That was why I brought up the point. :)
My sense is that a democratic socialism can only happen when most people want it to happen, and that's a long, gradual process that, ironically, the Russian Revolution set back.
There is no other way. The trick is to explain to the current elite why it is in their best interest to stand as equals with the rest of us. When you are among equals, you don't have to constantly watch your back.
I do not believe in equality of outcome. Some people are more productive than others. People actually enjoy seeing real excellence and hard work rewarded, when the rewards are proportional to the risk and effort.
But we should ensure that everyone has the basics: clean water, food, shelter, and medical care. We can't be hunter gatherers anymore. We need to live in society. Since we do not have the option of simply running off into the woods and fending for ourselves, society owes us that opportunity it took away from us, basic survival. If people do not have that guaranteed minimum, then any transaction relating to survival becomes coercive, and people become unfree.
Google 'fairness reciprocity economic experiments' or look up games theory on wikipedia. I'm not talking out my ass here, I'm basing my ideas on recent scientific evidence.
You see, we've spent the last 100,000 to a million years killing or shunning non cooperators. Won't play along? You don't get to breed. And so, cooperating is evolutionarily advantageous. We are born with that innate sense of fairness because it is a danger sense. Our genes tell us, if you don't act fairly, someone is likely to kill you.
I define 'good people' very simply, by the golden rule (or the platinum rule if you prefer: do unto others as you would have them do if you were in their shoes. That formulation takes into account, say, masochists who might like things I don't.)
I'm playing it safe and talking about people who make over a million a year. Actually, since I'm concerned with money's ability to control other people's lives, I'm not so concerned about income, but wealth. If you are in the top 1% of wealth holders, then you are 'wealthy' in my book.
In my opinion, most people don't need laws, but a few people really, really need them, and society has to perform a balancing act between limiting the freedoms of the basically good majority, and protecting them from the small minority of human predators.
If everyone in the world had food, shelter, clean water, and medical care, I would not care how much more some had than others. Until that time, the wealth inequality we have is absolutely obscene.
Yes. When the poor have a really crappy little apartment, enough boring, bland and nutritious food to eat, clean water, and medical care, that's all they get without working for it.
If people do not have those things, guaranteed, then they are not free. Anyone who has those things to offer can control them. Before we domesticated ourselves, anyone had a decent shot of making it on their own. Not anymore, we need society. So, society must provide for us, as it has usurped our ability to hunt and gather for ourselves, and we simply can't go back to that without killing off 90% of us.
If we give people all the basic necessities, guaranteed, then all transactions really are voluntary. Otherwise, transactions relating to survival are coercive. "Do what I say or starve" is no different than "Do what I say or I pull the trigger."
Nope, and I the only time I have seen governments do that is when the people let them. Government does not have to be corrupt.
1. No, it wasn't because that is what I truly believe that the money behind the 'small government' movement wants, and that is the dead end road that 'small government' types are driving us down. That is the end result.
2. You missed the 'nearly' in front of 'invariably,' didn't you? Honest mistake, I guess.
3. People are not all alike. Some will put up with quite a bit before they start the revolution. Others think it fair to steal from someone making twelve cents an hour more than them. And the rich are not so concerned about theft, they are insured and protected by private security. It's the middle class who take the hit.
4. Plenty of things in life are arbitrary, but fair nonetheless. And arbitrary does not mean that it can be arbitrarily changed, I think you will find broad consensus that those making over a million a year are rich. And my definition, the top one percent, is not arbitrary at all. It's pretty concrete. You could claim the choice of 1% is arbitrary, but then we are getting into meaningless semantics. Words mean only what people agree they mean anyway, and you are basically arguing that the word 'rich' has no real fixed meaning. Take it up with Websters.
(more to come. I've got actual work to do...)
How did Marx feel about anarchists such as Proudhon? What does the word 'vanguard' mean in Marxist philosophy? Did he use it, or was that a latter invention?
Huh, I thought government reduced crime by catching and incarcerating criminals, removing them from the population and providing a disincentive for other criminals. But then again, I also thought government kept free markets free by enforcing rules and punishing unfairness so that the richest could not unfairly dominate and control said markets like they used to do back in the bad old days of lassez faire. So yeah, I don't think we're on the same page at all.
Suffice it to say, I'm no longer interested in hearing anything you have to say about government. You hate it, I get it. Yet I imagine you still choose to live with one rather than go off and form your own society, don't you find that a bit hypocritical?
Now, I can understand not wanting to live in a society with a government. Some people are just hermits. But it sounds like you really don't want anyone to have a government. Why would that be? Well, the primary purpose of government is for the weak to protect themselves from exploitation by the strong. So, my natural assumption is that there is one simple reason that people want to force everyone to stop using governments to protect themselves: they want to exploit those people.
Just as a thought experiment, would you feel differently if you were the victim of a serious crime? It sounds as though you simply do not care if the guilty are caught and punished. You are right, that is not the position that most people have. Maybe you could explain why you hold such a seemingly self-endangering position?
No, in fact, most people are not greedy and selfish, recent economic experiments have shown that people value fairness and reciprocity over self interest.
If an elected government is full of stupid, evil, greedy people, who is really at fault?
How is taking taxes and giving some to the poor trampling your rights? Are you being held here against your will? Think of society like a retail establishment that sells package deals. You take the deal a society offers you, or you shop around for something better. You wouldn't walk into a Kentucky Fried Chicken and demand a Whopper for five cents, and then complain they were trampling your rights when they laughed at you, would you? If you don't like the deal, you are free to look elsewhere for a better one.
I don't want to remove all economic inequality, I want to remove economic inequity. Excellence and hard work should be rewarded, but fooling people into thinking you are excellent and hard working should not be. And why should pure luck be rewarded? Shouldn't good fortune be shared? Quite frankly, if you are selfish and don't feel like sharing your good fortune, how are you any benefit to society, and why should you be allowed to participate?
I think maybe we have different ideas about what 'fair' means. I don't think it is fair for 10% of the population to control 90% of the wealth, for instance. In such a society, there is no way that everyone is treated as equals and no way that everyone has the same political, economic, or civil rights. Would you or I have gotten the same light handed treatment that, say, Lindsey Lohan got for stealing an SUV, driving around intoxicated, and crashing it into an innocent bystander? Nope, justice really means 'just us rich folk.' How many Americans grow up with dozens of fabulously wealthy friends who are willing to loan us money for our loopy business schemes that have failed dozens of times in the past? You and I don't, But George W. Bush sure did.
We have two Americas now. The America of Wall Street CEOs that makes up 90% of the physical wealth of the country, and the America of the rest of us, a measly 10% split amongst the bottom 90%. They get bailouts and tax breaks, we get failing infrastructure.
That isn't what I meant, and even here in America you can not be forced to testify against yourself. But are you saying that the Netherlands police can not obtain a warrant to search your premises or tap your phones? I've never heard of anything like that before in any civilized country in the world.
I would say that it is fair to ensure that everyone gets at the bare minimum, clean water, enough to eat, shelter, and free medical care. If you want more than that, work for it. I don't think everyone should be rewarded equally, people who do more should get more.
But what is 'more?' If it were only tangible things like mansions and yachts, I would be fine with that. But what more really means, beyond a certain point, is more ability to control other people's lives, and that is not fair. Just because you are excellent at deciding what to invest in should not give you more control over other people's lives and livelihood.
You can't really use Russia as an example of socialism, as they didn't have that style of governemt. They were an oligarchy. Anyone can claim to be anything they like, for example, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is neither democratic, nor a republic. Why not use real examples of socialism, like most of Europe?
I'd say your theory about our education system is off the mark. I certainly don't recall schools teaching me anything like the lessons you claim they teach. I recall being taught that if you work hard, you will succede, but that does not appear to be true for most people. Hard work is important, but going to the right schools and knowing the right people will make you a success even without the hard work, and hard work without luck or contacts just leads to a long life slaving for someone else.
A government system must not assume corruption on the part of all human beings, lest it encourage just that. We must recognize that most people are not corrupt. In fact, most people value fairness and reciprocity over their own self interest. Only when they see that everyone around them is acting unfairly will most people begin to act unfairly themselves, in self defense.
The problem is and always has been the sociopaths who have faulty empathy and no capability for remorse. The vast majority of people do not need laws in order to be good people. They just need the ability to punish unfairness. And in a vastly unequal society, the poor simply don't have the ability to punish the rich when the rich act unfairly. They aren't even part of the same society. The rich can do whatever they like to the poor.
This is the problem. When some in society can impact the lives of others without being impacted themselves, they do not have to take the interests of the others into account. The power of the rich insulates them from even having to understand or empathize with the poor. The rich tell themselves a comforting myth, and no one has the power to stand up and make them understand that their myth is a lie: they did not achieve their position through excellence alone, but through systematic unfairness they took advantage of.
You have made quite an extrapolation from a very specific quote.
If your viewpoint really is that the middle and lower class should rise up and take from the rich because they have that power and it would benefit them (they have license to do so in a democracy), then I find your sig pretty ironic.
1. I'm glad you agree with my point.
2. We agree here, too. The rich favor big government for the rich, and small government for everyone else. As the rich make up only 1%, I'd say they generally want smaller government.
3. Are you simply noting the most obvious implications of what I said and repeating them in order to curry favor with me? Yes, this is exactly the major problem with wealth disparity, thanks.
4. My definition is not arbitrary. When the top 10% own 90% of the material wealth, I think that dividing line is crystal clear.
5. Taking something that someone originally stole from you is not wrong. The wealthy have been waging class war on us, and stealing the wealth we created.
6. Congratulations. You've made your first coherent point in the first half of this item. Which also negates the second half. If big government is no guarantee the poor will be helped, small government is no guarantee either. You say people argue that small government will help the poor, but on the most crucial point you remain silent: what are those arguments?
7. I agree completely, and let me add that I believe most people actually want to see excellence rewarded, even if they are not the recipient. We do not want excellence punished, but we do want unfairness punished.
8. I believe they are being fooled because they are acting neither according to any coherent principles they espouse, nor according to their own self interests.
The middle and lower class should rise up and take back what they created with their ingenuity and labor. Idly sitting in mansions investing money that you can not really lose does not create wealth. Work creates wealth.
My sig is a reminder that freedom isn't free. It takes work, and sacrifice. It is more than just license. Freedom means defending those whose freedoms are endangered.
It's your country, what I think shouldn't matter. Just because I'm an American does not mean I will bomb the crap out of you if we disagree.
Seriously, though, if your government has that much corruption, I agree with your sentiments. Its just that that was not made all that clear.
Another example of the extreme hypocrisy of the owning class: welfare for me, lassez faire capitalism for you. In fact, I think you will find that the most vocal supporters of the free market actually desire anything but.
I disagree with warrantless wiretapping, but I do like the ability to gather information about crimes. Have you thought about the consequences of your position? How would you handle prosecution of crimes without any covert investigation?
Subpoena of evidence is one of the most important powers that a civilized society uses to maintain justice. If that power is being abused, it should be corrected, but never done away with. Courts should always be able to compel evidence when necessary to decide a case. Otherwise, your society will soon be run by organized crime.