Tax the Rich!!!

[44]

I don't care how hard you guys try with this kind of baiting, I will not be one of those guys that posts an "I'm Back" message because they need to hear how much they're missed. Stop trying to drag me back in here with good discussions!

[Mighty Mouse]

Personally, I am tired of the "it's time for the people to act" argument. Why? Not because it's a bad idea, because it would be truly awesome to have 100% turnout next election to show those in power that their seats are getting hot. However, I would like to point out that "the people" are struggling to make ends meet and put their selfish needs ahead of societal interests. In that environment, do you think people have the wherewithal to vote intelligently? No, they would be easy targets for the next pedagogue with attractive catchphrases. The last thing I want to see is pedagogy in action at this critical juncture. Plus, as you guys have noted, there are no attractive alternatives. If you go with experience, you go with the same groups that have caused the problem. If you go with the new, you go with inexperience and same problems that Obama faces.
Ultimately, the problem is that government is so ubiquitous that we have become used to their machinations. That's why we are indifferent. The only way we can reduce indifference is to make government smaller by reducing the money we send to DC. Force them to cut staff and perks as the rest of the country has been forced to. Force them to make the tough choice as to which spending is worthwhile, not where to re-direct the extra revenue coming in. Don't let politicians raid one worthwhile program to fund another of their pork barrel spending projects.
Personally, I have no stake in the redistribution argument because I have no wealth to redistribute, nor would I take money in such a scenario because it's only a matter of time before I'm on the other side of the argument. What I do know is that there are people out there who own multiple buildings who are on Medicaid.

[JJ]

Gee. All this dissing of the One. You're a racist Stink. Just ask 44. And, would you NOT post those lame charts. Say it in the five sentences like R said.

The Militaristic One kicked Momar out of Libya, got Osama, kept us in Iraq, and -- wait for it! -- Gitmo is still open?! Well, it's the Dem Senate's fault. They did solve the Social Security math problem... no, wait! OK, tax the rich.

Only need Rabbit Rabbin making some goofy statement... Sheesh.

[stinkfingers]

Leave it to JJ to crawl out of his spider hole, make a side-ways comment or two, and slink off. Post-modern conservative blogger, spider speak.

Interesting that we're able to agree around some basic premises here. Government has grown larger than is necessary, but revenues have dwindled to critical levels. MM, it is important to you, despite where you fall economically, that wealth is not entirely consolidated in the hands of the few. First of all, you're not likely to be in the top 5%, and given current rates of consolidation, the top 5% is going to have everything. Everything. Two class society. You and I don't want that.

I think you've missed out a tad on the Pedagogue argument: the right has essentially pulled it for the last couple of years. You can see it in this anti-intellectual strain of GOP candidates, demonizing science and waging culture wars. It's scary. We haven't really yet seen a strong dose of it from the left: Edwards came the closest with his Two Americas riff.

The time is certainly right for a pedagogue. Someone who appeals to the masses with populist policies could potentially draw some votes, but the establishment is going to stomp it (if it comes from the left, especially). It costs piles of money to run a viable campaign, and a populist isn't going to get a dime from the corporate world, where most campaign money comes from.

I've seen a couple interesting blogs referencing the Wiemar Republic and how it led to conditions that paved the way for Hitler. You can see parallels, though Germany experienced very different conditions than what we're dealing with here, and anti-antisemitism was endemic. Easy for Adolf to use Jews and the threat of communism to rally the disposed.

Ill-informed, disenfranchized people are very dangerous in that they are susceptible to demagogues, and you can see that we've got these elements in our society already. Fox News does it's best to make it's viewers stupid and angry, and the economy at large is creating more dispossessed every day. Think of Fox's coverage of the Tea Party rallies. Beck sponsored a few himself. Think of the signs you saw at the rallies: images of Obama as a witch doctor, or as a communist. Cries of Health reform as "socialism".

Not terribly far off from the early Brown shirts.

Some of those barely concealed racist responses have been quelled by Obama's obvious meandering to the right.

[Mighty Mouse]

But ultimately, a capitalist society depends on the continued stratification of the classes to succeed. The driving force of any capitalistic society is greed and those who have want to keep it away from the have nots. In that scenario, the only way to prevent the class warfare is to create artificial processes to redistribute wealth. But I think we can agree government is bad way to do it because they have not shown the wherewithal or the responsibility to properly manage finances. In times of boom they waste. In times of bust they borrow against the future. Perhaps we can get rid of inheritances and trusts to prevent the concentration of wealth. Once you die, all of your wealth goes into a big pot and gets re-distributed to the next generation of newborns based on set mathematical formula. To prevent fraud against the system, any wealth transfer up to 10 years prior to death is subject to scrutiny and cancellation.

For me, it is not left/right. It's right/less right. I'm starting to think that we should be going to a more parliamentary system to address the deadlocks that go with the bi-system.

[JJ]

@MM

Capitalist society's driving force -- or idea -- is opportunity, not greed. You have a right to acquire the money to get a luxury car and so does everyone here. You have the right to get a Prius that runs on electricity and save the planet -- or you may think so. Tomorrow try telling some people that they have no right to earn money to buy an electric car. Some of them might cry about their ability to make money. I bet all of them will tell you to buzz off about the rights thing. We all take for granted the right to earn, eh?

If I were a real conspiracy theorist (John Perkins?), I might say the socialist Democrats like Obama, by the backdoor, want to remove your right to earn money by raising all the taxes except your payroll taxes. To the point where the federal government is like a huge vacuum cleaner sucking up all the money and destroying rights and opportunity to the point that all cooperate with the state. But, hey, I'm no conspiracy theorist...

@ Stink

You got to Godwin's Law fast...

I don't think anything is wrong with our "system". It's working. It is just led badly right now. The Democratically-controlled Senate needs to be switched to Republican since the Republicans are the only ones interested in cutting spending. Hey, a majority of the economists (who can trust em?!) say that cutting spending is the only way out. A second large part say cut spending and raise some taxes. The third small 10% says raise taxes. We will be Greeks soon, brothers, if not!

The real problem right now IMO is the lack of impartial media...

[Mighty Mouse]

@JJ...I think your characterization lacks realism. Perhaps you have been taught in school about opportunity and opportunity costs, but consider that your thinking only works if we all have equal start from birth. But I think we can agree that's not the case. We all may have the right, but when people are born into wealth, they seek to shape the laws to protect their wealth and their descendants at the expense of those who do not have as much even if it means undermining another person's position. That to me is greed. Perhaps you define it differently.

Perhaps in your world you live in a pure capitalistic society, but there is no such animal on this planet. Why do those economically wealthy seek the next dollar, greater political power. Greed.

I love how you talk about rights, but then you fail to address the question. Who gives you the right? That would be a better topic to address.

[Baba]

For those that dont like the heavy lifting of reading through Stinks fine post I thought I would boil down some of the points into a cartoon form.

Doonsbury.jpg (276.43 KiB) Viewed 5782 times

The tired cries of "too much government spending" and "unshackle the corporations" get nauseating when you have to live (as we all do if we realize it or not) with the ramifications of these policies.
Yes the corps have been fleeing this country for decades now finding cheap labor, unregulated environmental and working conditions with with to increase their bottom line. It's made them very wealthy. It's also gutted what there was to the myth of the middle class. Decent manufacturing (might I add that can also read Union) jobs have been shipped south of the border or oversea's.
So surprising that there aren't as many people to buy their products now.
The Dem's and Republicans are so far up the asses of the corporations that they are both spewing out of their mouth.
Talk of further deregulation ( closing EPA etc) is downright scarey.
California has never recovered from the Ron Paul-esque libertarian zealots that passed Prop 13 in 1978. The education system has plummeted to the bottom of the country and will take many many years and a lot of resources (and political will) to rebuild. Meanwhile the social / economic costs have been devastating.
Indeed there is in fact too much government spending in some areas, and inefficient and misguided spending in others.
Th equestion is where do you focus and prioritize on spending the money?
First place I would take the axe to is the bloated military budget. Prisons too need to be cut down and closed. Unnecessary wars, weapons systems that are fantasy toys for the militarily inclined have soaked up far too much of our budget for too long.
Rather than building walls and deploying armies to keep people out of our country, maybe use those resources for the people who live here.
One of the few things I have heard that Obama might do that seemed intelligent of late was that as part of his jobs package he might authorize funding to do a massive rebuild of this countrys schools.
Now we are talking.

[stinkfingers]

J.J.: Why don't you google Godwin's law and read it slowly. Let me save you some time:
""As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 (100%)."[3][2] In other words, Godwin put forth the hyperbolic observation that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis."

Do you comprehend this? Godwin's law applies when someone, let's say Glenn Beck, starts comparing someone, let's say Obama, to Hitler or the Nazis in order to demonize that person in the comparison. I referenced a parallel that may or may not exist between where American society is and where Germany was during the Weimar republic as a continuation of MM's point about pedagogues. I did make a comment about Fox News/Tea Party rallies resembling early brown shirt activism. Those parallels are obvious to anyone who paid attention during high school history classes, or is familiar with the sentiment captured in this Goering quote:

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on
a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of
it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people
don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in
Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the
country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to
drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no
voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked,
and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the
country to danger. It works the same in any country."

It's a cheap trick to call out a reference to Hitler in a discussion of pedagogues. And it's stupid to call it Godwin's law when the parallels are fitting. Same ol' JJ, though.

Let me back up and say this plainly: years ago I called you out for what you are, after too many incidents of mistaking your posts for representing honest content. Your arachnid, side-ways meandering, coy phrasings and faux Nietzschean-Derridean "playfulness" with the truth is old news. It does not disguise the fact that at your core you are a fierce conservative ideologue who will never allow a well reasoned, logical and evidenced supported argument budge your personal convictions. We all figured out years ago, that the only difference between you and Bush was that you tended to cloak your opinions in post-modern lexical contraptions so that your point would be harder to pin down. It worked for a while. Until it became plain that you had no intellectual center. If they cut you open, nothing but fear and dearly guarded preconceptions and prejudices would spill out.

Last time we "spoke" (as if anyone ever speaks with you) I finished my business with Ad hominems because after repeatedly debunking your bullsh*t only to face another torrent of it the next day, the obvious question became "what is it exactly that spawns such twisted, soul-less horsesh*t?" For you words are merely ephemeral sound sparkles to give voice to your exhalations. You're a pathological liar.

MM's a conservative, and he detected your bullsh*t. He's dead on. And before I go, that non-sense about the majority opinion of economist saying that cutting spending is the way to go flies in the face of the facts. You need to learn that you may be called upon to reference your assertions, because people in the reality based community understand that the purpose of the word is to stand for ideals, objects, beings or relationships of these things in the world. Words mean something. In that sense, words are purported to have a direct, representational relationship with what they stand for. What I'm saying is that when the rest of us speak, we are attempting to assert some truth about the world, not merely trying to cloak our personal prejudices in phonetic form at every opportunity.

Nice post, Baba.

Your references, JJ:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2 ... economists
wherein 75% of Private sector economists PRIVATE sector, not liberal academics, say that we need to raise taxes to reverse the recession.

[Mighty Mouse]

@Baba...The problem with government spending is that the politicians like to spend on things that gives us wet dreams. A shiny new aircraft carrier? Fantastic! American soldiers taking out OBL? Fantastic, we are getting things done! A new school, uuuhhh, it won't be years until we see returns on that investment and most of us will no longer be in office.

Also, as to reduced military spending, there are enough "threats" out there to scare the rest of us into continuing to build the next big bomb.