Elitism

[Michael Tee]

 http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/9/10/10717/6536/576/593346
 
fedorowiczj 1 - And now, more polls come out that show McCain/Palin bouncing ahead of Obama/Biden, one must wonder if the NCE voters are going to drop the ball again.  Are the people that strongly elected and re-elected Bush going to stand up to the elite, like myself, and vote down the a highly intelligent, highly eloquent, Harvard-educated president?  This is what it has become, a revolution against elitist culture and an embrace into the gun-toting, "He/She is more like me" voting basis.
       Two liberals have echoed my comments on their daily and weekly TV shows.  Jon Stewart, the fake news anchor on the fake news show said this on his television show (Go to 7:25 or so):

Jon Stewart:
"Doesn’t elite mean good? Is that not something we’re looking for in a president anymore? ... The job you’re applying for — if you get it, and it goes well, they might carve your head into a mountain. If you don’t actually think you are better than us, then what the f@*k are you doing? ... Not only do I want an elite president, I want someone who is embarrassingly superior to me. I want someone who speaks sixteen languages and sleeps two hours a night hanging upside down in a chamber they themselves designed."

Bill Maher:
"I don't get it: In other fields -- outside of government -- elite is a good thing, like an elite fighting force. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer. If I need brain surgery, I'd like an elite doctor. But in politics, elite is bad -- the elite aren't down-to-earth and accessible like you and me and President Shit-for-Brains. But when the anti-elite crowd demonizes the elite, what they're actually doing is embracing incompetence. Now, I know what you're thinking: That doesn't sound like our president -- ignoring intelligence."

[Xavier_Onassis]

I think that defining the opposition as elite cause those who feel that they are losers to wish to get back at those who have beat them out for that better job, bought the better house, married the cuter girl, beat them in some dumb ball game.

So they lash out at those members of the elite who have proven their superiority over them.

This is a competitive society, and even though most of the competition is inherently meaningless, to those with an eight-grade mentality, competition is the only meaning for their pathetic lives. Deriving pleasure from the journey is meaningless to them: the attainment of the goal is everything. Every act takes the form of a quick sexual act.

These are the clowns that buy Hummers and other large, useless pieces of iron, honk at people in front of them at stoplights after they have already started to move, and flap their giant rubber fingers at the other side at sporting events.

There are lots more losers than winners in economic terms in the US. In sports, there is only one winning team, one winning golfer, one winning WWF wrestler. The rest are all losers, seen in this way.

No one enjoys being a loser, and those who are incapable of seeing that this is the nature of existence can feel good by rejecting someone clearly superior to themselves.

This losers and winners schtick is a major feature of advertising stuff like beer, cigarettes, all manner of booze, cars and clothing.

 

[BT]

Guess that is why the dems answer to taxation is to tax the elite.

See, the elite don't deserve their wealth.

They won life's lottery.

So it is important for the dems to make sure there is a wedge driven between the elite and the ordinary people, patch of land people, workaday people.

and then they wonder why Americans are anti-elite.

very strange.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Oh please.

You can even find a justification for progressive taxation in the Bible:

"From those to whom much is given, much is expected."

I find it exceedingly droll that these clowns who call themselves Christians claim to follow Christ in every way except the ways that would actually matter most to their fellow 'brothers in Christ".

 

You actually think that some guy with a hit record or a very good financial planner should be rewarded 100X the amount of someone who actually works hard at some useful job?

You cannot tax people who have nothing. The society is designed in such a way that some are compensated beyond any reasonable amount for some talent or quirk of fate. If someone makes $2,000,000 per year and pays 30% in taxes, they still have $1,400,000 to spend. That is not unreasonable. Progressive taxation simply is a way of making life more fair. What do you have against fairness? You are never going to make $2,000,000 a year.

[BT]

Seems to me you secularists sure do quote the bible a bunch.

You actually think that some guy with a hit record or a very good financial planner should be rewarded 100X the amount of someone who actually works hard at some useful job?

Yeah. Laborers get paid by the hour. Musicians have to pay their dues.

So the windfall isn't that huge when amortized over the length of a career.

As if what they make is any of your business anyways.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Yeah. Laborers get paid by the hour. Musicians have to pay their dues.

So the windfall isn't that huge when amortized over the length of a career.

As if what they make is any of your business anyways.

===========================================
Dues are deductible, so are tools. You can file a 1040x to equalize taxes over a period of years when income is unequal.

Taxes are necessary for the functioning of the society. Society and how it functions is everyone's business.

Society and government are by their very nature joint ventures by every one of their members. The value of a dollar is important to everyone who earns or spends a dollar. This applies to every human society that exists, has ever existed, or will ever exist.

You seem to envision it as an assortment of Scrooges, hunkering down and growling over the pile of money in front of them, like a dog with a bone.

[Amianthus]

You can file a 1040x to equalize taxes over a period of years when income is unequal.

The 1040X is to correct a mistake in a previous year's tax return. There is no way to "equalize" your taxes over multiple years.

[Xavier_Onassis]

There is a way to equalize taxes over several disparate years. Perhaps it is not a 1040x, but there is a form for this.

[Amianthus]

There is a way to equalize taxes over several disparate years. Perhaps it is not a 1040x, but there is a form for this.

Please tell me what it is, then. From my research, the only way to equalize taxes over several years is to defer income via an escrow account - and that needs to be setup in advance, you cannot do it "after the fact."

[BT]

Dues are deductible, so are tools.

Musicians and other artists don't pay those kind of dues.

[sirs]

There is a way to equalize taxes over several disparate years. Perhaps it is not a 1040x, but there is a form for this.

Please tell me what it is, then. From my research, the only way to equalize taxes over several years is to defer income via an escrow account - and that needs to be setup in advance, you cannot do it "after the fact."

Obviously, there is, Ami     

[sirs]

I'm a little perplexed here, so help me out.  The left is blasting McCain for being largely "more elitist" than Obama, because he doesn't recall how many homes his wife has in her trust, and that his wife's family has made a substantial return on her father's original $10,000 investment.  And here I'm seeing how being elite is a good thing, how we want an elite individual running this country, someone who should be "superior" to the rest of us.

So.....which is it?

[Michael Tee]

The issue, as always, is Republican hypocrisy.  When a guy who doesn't know how many houses he owns (and pays about a quarter of a million dollars every year from his own pocket for domestic help wages) calls Obama, a community organizer and law professor an "elitist" it is, to say the least, bizarre and surrealistic.

[sirs]

Didn't answer the question, I see.  Want to try again?

[richpo64]

>>When a guy who doesn't know how many houses he owns (and pays about a quarter of a million dollars every year from his own pocket for domestic help wages) calls Obama, a community organizer and law professor an "elitist" it is, to say the least, bizarre and surrealistic.<<

What does one thing have to do with the other? Being rich doesn't make you elistist. Looking down your nose at people who cling to guns and religion does... for example.