Dersmikner wrote:
Here are some honest thoughts:
1. My family used to be poor, poor, poor. Matter of fact my Dad used to say "we're just 'po', there's no 'or' to it." Dad and Mom worked their asses off, Dad kicked ass in college, got a scholarship to medical school, and those days are long past. I have no sympathy for the poor. If you WANT to get out of it, you can. Does it take time and hard work? Absolutely, but in America EVERYONE can rise above poverty. There are two kinds of people in the world: The kind who get things done, and the kind who make excuses why they don't get things done. I call bullshit on anyone who is poor.
So if everyone works hard they can all climb the corporate ladder and everyone can be the manager..... A well thought out scheme.
Dersmikner wrote:
2. I am in favor of some form of limits to voting. I believe that if you don't pay taxes (and I'm not talking about filing a return, I'm talking about making a net contribution in the form of a check to the government), own property, or serve in the military you have no right to vote. Sorry. If you don't contribute to the community coffers or serve to defend them why should you have the right to determine how other people's money is spent? No asshole off the street can walk into my home and tell me how to spend the household money because he hasn't contributed to the household bank account. Same principle. If you don't add to the stash, you don't get to determine how the stash is spent. I'd even be for graduated voting. You can pick the level of taxes you want to pay, and your vote counts along those lines. The more you want to contribute the more say you get in how the money is spent. If you don't want to pay any tax at all, you get no vote. Of course, that might cost you in the long run when legislation goes against you, but that's the way it would work. You could cap it somehow so Bill Gates couldn't simply buy the entire government, but I think that someone who pays $100,000+ in taxes should have more say than someone who makes $20,000 a year and gets an "earned income tax credit" which is basically just a handout. Why should that person have as much say when they've not nearly made the contribution the other guy has?
That would be a good plan if you wanted to ruin the country. Nobody would bother paying taxes. Also, since when does pay earned equate to value to society?
Dersmikner wrote:
3. Let's just get to the crux of it: You "socialists" either don't have any money or you have some yourself but you want to tell me how I have to spend mine. Personal property rights are something that simply escapes you. If I wake up in the morning and I go to work and I create something through my own labor and someone is willing to pay me for that, who the fuck are you to tell me that I have to take that money and support my fellow man? Who are you to tell me I have to pay more for better schools for someone else's kids, or for a breakfast program for the poor, or for dental care for the needy or healthcare for the sick and elderly? If YOU want to donate to that shit, feel free, but what makes you think you can watch me go to work, watch me earn money, then waltz into my bank account and decide to take some of what I'VE EARNED and use it for what you think is a noble cause? Go live in a tent and give away ALL YOUR MONEY, but don't try to legislate theft and call it right. It's still theft. This country was founded on the idea that we are free people, with the right to earn without undue taxation, and that the government should only be here to meet the bare essentials of rule and order. Anyone remember the Boston Tea Party? Anyone know the phrase "taxation without representation"? You're going down the very road that this country was founded to avoid. Stay the fuck out of my wallet. Give me a military to keep us from getting invaded, pave roads because individuals can't, provide police and firefighters, and stay the hell out of everything else. The market works pretty damned well when it's not interfered with.
The problem you will run into is that your plan would utterly cripple the country. Agriculture, airline industry, all high tech industry, pharmacuticals etc. etc. could never have occured and would almost certainly disappear without huge government influence. Free markets tend to ignore externalities until they cripple the sector. Fucking up the environment is a great short term profit maker, but comes back with a vengence later, but that's later so it's not important for free-market economics.
Free markets have been tried in Africa and South America with spectacular failures in both. There's good reason why no rich countries actually have proper free-market economies, they're crap. Without govenrment to spend huge amounts the public's of money on research, infrastructure and the welfare of the populace the economy is doomed to stagnate and fail.
Dersmikner wrote:
Or we can go with your theory. I went to work about 50 hours this week, then I went in for 5 hours yesterday, and I'll make a little 2 hour jaunt up there today, so I CAN HAVE MORE SHIT, not so you can earn more tax dollars to spend as you see fit. If you're a "socialist" to any degree, you're nothing more than a common fucking lazy thief who doesn't have the balls to break and enter. You're trying to legalize your theft and that makes you not just a thief, but a hypocritical pussy. The worst kind of shitbag.
If you actually, honestly worked out all the things that have benefitted you in your life that came from public spending you'd be amazed. Using your personal story, your poor parents wouldn't have been able to afford to go to school in the first place, hence you'd probably be poor or never have been born without any socialism.