I collected couple of posts (1 from Js & 1 from Brass) that don't necessarily validate the debate topic at hand, but I'm hoping it spurs some dialog (unless of course Brass has read my mind already and has devined the nefarious alternate reasoning for my posting) so, I'll post them, then initiate my thoughts, and let things go from there.
I don't think it is an "ideological goal of the left," <<We all fall into the middle class>> though it may be the goal of some.
I would much rather we all be "rich". There is no reason whatsoever that we can't all be the upper class. None. If you turn society into one where the competition is not who can amass the most toys but who can amass the most honor, that world would easily make this one look like a shitbox. Replace the dollar with honor. There's your bumpersticker for the new socialist revolution.
Clearly, Domer, the answer lies in one's own ideology. The predominant two can easily be summed up in these ways. The conservative/capitalist "MINE! Get your own!" The liberal/socialist "We're all in this together." These are absolutes and regardless of a conservative's adherence to "charitable organizations lending a hand" idea or a socialist's desire for toys of every stripe, the two ideology's will remain at core.
The last 1 being quite the kicker, obviously. So basically, to folks like Brass, this "we're all in this together" apparently translates into "you will abide by how I believe things are to be, by way of my taxing you or coercing you in some other way to do as I say". Quite the compassionate soul there, so eager to use everyone else's resources for his personal satisfaction that it go to help everyone. Tripping all over himsself, in the process, at trying to expalin how he HAS to buy gas, or else *cue violin*he has to turn his life around. Yet continues to fail in grasping the freedom of choice he has, in doing such
Let me start by offering my apologies for not having gotten right on a reply to your post, sirs. It really isn't that often that someone goes to the bother of writing an entire post about one member's beliefs and I am at fault for not immediately thanking you for spending so much time in your efforts to denigrate me for whatever bizarre reason you have in your head. Work is kind of busy today because we're trying to get stuff knocked out so that the boss can take everyone to dinner tonight and so I've not been around my desk as much as I usually am. So, to work.
I'll cop to wanting people to abide by how I believe things should be. That is true. I do believe the world would be a better place and less people would be starving if all the resources of the world were thought to be owned by every person in the world. There is no shame in wanting to end want on the planet for every human being. Right now, our nation's military is being used in an attempt to impose the will of a few likeminded individuals on the people of Iraq. The People of Iraq didn't ask for democracy. Maybe they yearned for freedom from the rule of Saddam Hussein but they never asked for democracy. It is the will of our "leaders" that the people of Iraq adopt democracy.
I have disagreement with some of your statements though. The continuing misrepresentation of my wanting to enslave everyone is quite boring to me now. Over and over again, in the threads that have dealt with what we have come to label the RBE, I have operated in nothing but good faith. My posts are in earnest when we find some nugget that must be debated or discussed and my hope has ever been that one day someone will, if not accept the idea as valid totally, they will at least concede a point; but, I can't recall one time when that has ever been the case. Not once. That is usually pointed out as either my failing to appreciate the wonders of capitalism, my complete and total ignorance of "human nature" or more crassly my plain stupidity. In every discussion though, I have pointed out that that plan for the RBE involved creating an Army of Automation which would work to automate nearly every facet of labor without destroying the possibility of humans continuing to do that labor if they wanted.
And what irks me most about that is not the name-calling, misrepresentation or blame, that I can't take, what is worst is the total dismission of even a small part of the RBE idea as valid or even possible. At the end of every thread we've ever had on the subject, I have felt that those who argued so dismissively of the idea or who so vociferously defended capitalism had not budged one centimeter while I had made my positions so fluid in as many possible ways short of saying that capitalism was a better way. As I have always said, "Those who hold capitalism up as the only true way have always hung the RBE's inescapable failure on the most ridiculous of points usually exemplified best in the "strawberry-picking robots" discussion." Meaning that since no capitalist could ever conceive that a robot would EVER be able to pick a strawberry and not bruise it or crush it then the RBE was doomed to fail.
I'm off on a tangent. Back to your statements I disagree with.
Yes, I have a compassionate soul. That's bad? But let me point this out YET AGAIN. Did you think that those who left their homes across America on 9.12 to get to New York City to help in the digging or console grieving families or bring equipment to GIVE in the recovery effort were out to enslave everyone? If I had been president that day, we'd be living in the closest thing to an RBE by now because I would have turned to the rest of the world and used their goodwill and support of the US as seeds for goodwill and support for all of Humanity. I wouldn't have flushed the support of the world down the toilet on something so tawdry as money or power or revenge. Call me compassionate and I'll thank you.
The gas discussion played itself out and I feel that we reached a point where I had proven myself right and actually had an epiphany of sorts regarding some self-perceived hypocrisy/laziness on my part. The facts are that in the way my life is arranged at this point, I must buy gas that's just the facts. When taking into account all the facets of my life that would be impacted perhaps extremely negatively (say if my wife wanted a divorce because I wanted to move to the country) or my kid's might become L-shaped after breaking it because I chose for us to move to a farm and not have gas to take him to a hospital in time, the cost of
not buying gas is so inflated that it is instantly taken off the table. Do I see that as "having choices"? No, I would see that as enslavement to gas. And just like a slave in 19th century America, I could "choose" to run away from the life of slavery but that would mean that I might have to leave my children behind or, if caught, my foot may get chopped off or they might hang me if I do it too many times. Those were a slave's "choices" but would that make them free and considered having options? Come on, you know it doesn't and you guys are playing semantics and grasping at straws. Cue the violin if you like but the truth is sad sometimes.
So, whatever twisted definition you want to buy about "conservative/capitalist/mine, get your own", the one thing that can not be refuted, though often ignored by folks like Brass, is the freedom that such a philosophy brings in choosing, doing, pursuing, whatever one wants. Will there be roadblocks?, of course. Will many start somewhat handicapped by way of where they're born or the economic nature to which their born in?, yea. Does that prevent anyone from striving to do or be anything they set their mind to? absolutely not. Yet apparently that freedom is "selfish". That potential to be the greatest at whatever you are striving for is uncaring, mean, greedy in fact. Ironically, it's that capitalistic freedom that allows one to strive for greatness, then return some of that success via charitable donations, financial donations, the setting up of scholarships, employing others, etc., etc., etc, that is routinely demagogued
"Capitalism allows everyone to go out and become whatever they set their minds to do." That is patently and disgustingly false. The price of college alone is often the reason so many don't go and don't wind up being whatever they set their minds to do. A kid from a poor part of Memphis whose parents were poor and never amounted to much more than day laborers who watch tv constantly and have ruined their credit as much as they can is not going to be able to afford college if he ever even gets to the point where he knows he WANTS to go to college. Is that his fault? Certainly not. But here we are in this cycle where his parents had the same kind of parents and the cycle will continue when he knocks up some 16 year old girl because all he knows how to do and has been taught to do by his parents and media is to follow his animal urges. Eat, sleep, screw and shit. Capitalism allows those who have the means to go out and do whatever they set their minds to do.
Let's say that kid gets influenced by a coach or a teacher and figures out what dreams are or that he wants to follow a path. His parents are still poor and ignorant. His resources are still nil. So, here's where the capitalism kind of becomes his tool. The kid can get out there and hustle his ass off. Work at McD's night and day. Deliver papers. Cut yards. And all the like. Good for him. It builds character to get out there and make your own way by accomplishing your goal. All well and good. So, he starts college at 20 or whatever, he's still there right? So, he's in school and works his ass off, makes good grades, delivers pizzas at night while trying to write his papers by hand and then find time to type them up at the library or computer room at school. Years in school making it happen. Then he gets out of school and what does he find? The economy is tight right now because of outsourcing and nobody's hiring. People in the world still need people to do the job that he trained to do but since the company's got to make a buck, they aren't going to hire someone and decrease demand. Hell, the owner might not get to buy his kid that new Mustang for him to tool around campus in.
For capitalism to have success stories, there MUST be haves and have nots. For capitalism to have a job at all, there must be want (sometimes even artificially-sustained want) and surplus ("I have extra carrots, do you want to trade for your extra melon?") and result in segmented profit that results in financial inequality (even in non-profit corporations people get salaries). Capitalism requires the participants to buy a seat at the table. Those with nothing to offer are not participants. Where does that leave someone who doesn't even realize that he has nothing to offer? He leaves him as a consumer. A tool of those who know the scam. Sure, he works but to barely get by.
Communism assumes that everyone is valid and is a participant in the system in some way. For communism to work, you don't have to have all three of the imperative components of capitalism. Best case scenario, you shouldn't have ANY of the three necessary components of capitalism.
But let me point out your blatantly hypocrisy in the capitalism vs RBE discussions. You said capitalism allows people to become whatever they want. Well, I know for certain that is EXACTLY what I say about the RBE and whenever I say that, the hue and cry is absolutely deafening with people crying that not everyone can be a brain surgeon. Now, how is it that capitalism can have this magical effect on people and the RBE doesn't allow for it? Chew on that for me.
Now for your other point of blatant hypocrisy and bullshit that infuriates me the most of all. That potential to be the greatest at whatever you are striving for is uncaring, mean, greedy in fact. That is exactly the OPPOSITE of what I have been saying. I have nothing but support for those who want to go out and be the greatest at what you are striving for. Wanna be the greatest bridge-builder? Go do it. Go build a bridge better as the Golden Gate and I will sing your praises. Wanna be the greatest filmmaker? Knock yourself out! Show that hack Orson Wells how
Citizen Kane should have been made. I'll work to get people to go see it. Want to be known as the guy that invented the greatest tasting bread in history? I want you to make that bread and I want to taste it. What I DON'T want is for you to go be the greatest drug researcher in the history of man and create, say, the drug that cures cancer and then demand to be given some kind of extra power over others who may HAVE cancer. That power is defined in financial terms in our current system. And THAT is what I'm talking about. What I continually see as pathetic in you and your ilk is that your view that becoming "the greatest at whatever you are striving for" can only be defined in terms of financial wealth which is merely a tool to use over others.
The people who garner respect in this world are those that
give of themselves and their talents not the ones who
sell their talents and make big profits. Who do you respect more, the eye doctor who builds a practice treating those who are the most wealth and will buy only designer eyeglass or the eye doctor who goes abroad with "Doctors Without Borders" and helps poor children with no money to be able to see that there are actually individual blades of grass and not just a mass of green on the ground? In the RBE, this question would be moot because everyone could have designer eyeglasses and no child would ever get to the point where they didn't know they were blind.
(In our current system, a drug that cures cancer would be addressed financially before perfected and released for public use. A drug company would have to look at whether or not a drug that cures cancer would impact that company's existence or profit line. No drug company would actually see a drug that cures cancer as anything but a threat to long term profit goals. If they did come up with such a drug, that information would be kept absolutely confidential. A cancer-curing drug would only be offered in secret to the most wealthy in the world. They would be the only ones who could afford it. In the RBE, a cancer curing pill would be the first goal of nearly every company but you wouldn't have the Bizarro World aspect of capitalism influencing decisive questions like "Should we cure cancer?")
Is Capitalism perfect? no one's ever claimed such. Is America perfect? Laughable to even think it. Do both provide and facilitate the freedoms that this country has come to cherish and make us great?, absofrellinloutely. Is there any other country I'd rather live in? That question doesn't even have to be asked. Yet, what a sad commentary however for an ideological philosophy when in the name of "we're all in this together", it's we're all in this particular social structure together.....or else. 
It sounded like your point was lost at the end there and you felt like you just needed another paragraph to flesh it out. It sort of indicates that this post of yours is little more than an attempt to poke me with a stick or throw rocks at me like a mono-browed 12-year-old banging on the glass of the gorilla's cage then wrinkling his nose, sticking out his tongue while holding his thumbs in his ears and waggling his fingers.
Let me just close this out with a thought that I have often that I think defines my beliefs. If I were to win the lottery, I would use it to erase as much debt as possible. Not just my own but of as many of the people I know as possible. I would be worried that there might be some kind of penalty for giving as much money away as I would. I wouldn't wonder about how much a Winnebago costs right off the bat. I would wonder if there would be any kind of taxation on the money that I give to other people and I'd want to give them enough to cover the taxation as well so that my gift wouldn't inadvertantly become a burden. I wouldn't bitch about how much the government was taking because any that they didn't take would be a hell of a lot more than what I had before I won the lottery. I would set aside enough money for all the children I know to have higher education (you know, depending on how much I win in the lottery). I wouldn't set aside money for my own son to go to Yale or Harvard and the rest of the kids to go to community college. I would set aside enough to where they would all go to the same type. Sure, less for my son but more kids would get a chance.
I would take some money and buy a lot of houses in my neighborhood, refurbish them and either help people finance them or simply sign them over. The thought being that for every house that is financed by the new owners that is one more family that we may be able to get into their own home. I would not buy a new home outside of town but I would instead make improvements to the home I have already and make some small additions.
Depending on the amount, I would then try to set up some kind of foundation that would continue to make money somehow and do all these things constantly. I would not allow my name to be part of the foundations name but would have the word Humanism or Humanist or Humanity in the name somehow so that way of thinking would receive more press every time the foundation re-furbished another house for a family or presented another scholarship.
Now, if I'm to be pilloried for being compassionate and wanting the world to be fed, clothed, housed, educated and healthy that says more about those who would pillory me for that than about me. For me, it is about the needs of the many outweighing the wants of a few like you. This is not about me wanting a flatscreen tv for free. (Don't get me wrong, I do want that but only if EVERYONE can get one for free.) For me, if I was given the power to throw a switch and suddenly we would be living in the world where the RBE is the accepted norm and all the people are fed, clothed, housed, educated and healthy then you can bet your sweet bippy that I wouldn't have to be asked twice because one less starving baby is worth every capitalist's tears over their petty ideology being flushed down the toilet to join blood-letting and virgin sacrifice as accepted norms.
