Carter Nails It - - All Bush's Fault

[Amianthus]

I've done plenty of editing myself. Matter of fact, I'm an editor for a game manufacturer and an online magazine.

I have been paid a lot of money over the years for editing. I find it hard to believe that people who consistently write unintelligibly ( and you are not one of them)  would not appreciate not sounding illiterate.

Nobody here pays you to edit their posts - or even asks you to do it for free - and even if they did, I'm sure that they would not ask you to ridicule them in the course of your editing tasks. Is that how you edited documents when you were paid for it? Made fun of the mistakes?

[Amianthus]

Spo for So is an obvious typo, NOT a spelling error.

Likewise, "aboilish" for "abolish" is an obvious typo.

[Universe Prince]

Sorry.  I should have been more precise.  I don't want to decide how much money someone else should make before becoming subject to increased income tax.  I want my government to decide that.  My personal opinion is that anybody should be able to live quite nicely on a pre-tax income of $250K.  I believe in the principle that the rich should pay more, LOTS more.  We need to level out the gross inequalities in the distribution of our wealth.  People shouldn't WANT to eat well while others go without.  If they do, fuck them - - tax them anyway.  The tax isn't 100% - - far from it.  Those greedy little fucks will still have more than the rest of us, the crackheads, the bunglers, the dreamers.  So they can still be "happy" with their wealth, it's just that they'll have less to be happy with.

And here we get to crux of your argument. You want to punish people who don't agree with you. This is the fundamental problem I have with your argument.

I realized it's more effective if we all pitch in to help together that it requires less personal sacrifice from me.  The important thing is helping those in need, not punishing me or even the rich.

So what do you do to help those in need? No, you don't need to answer that question but all I see is you bitching about the rich having too much. I don't see anything about what is really needed to help the rich. Your plan seems to be take from other people who have more than you think they should be allowed to have. That isn't about helping people. That is about punishing people for not agreeing with you. Me, I don't bitch about what someone else should do. I do what I can. I try to help the local food bank as best I can. I try, as my skills allow, to help youth get involved in a program to help rebuild homes for people in extreme poverty. Bitching because other people have more than I do is doesn't help anyone. And it isn't altruism. It's envy. I have no time for that. So when I see people who seem to do nothing but complain about other people having more, it strikes me a nothing but childish selfishness, like the child who whines because some other child has a Tonka truck or a Gameboy, or the child who complains that some other child getting to do something or have something as a reward is "unfair".

But if we're gonna be at our most effective in delivering the needed assistance, the effort must be collective and must be as painless as possible for all involved.  It's a lot less painful for Mr.  250K to give up 20K than it is for me to give up 10.  Or should be.  And if it isn't, then fuck the greedy little bastard anyway.  End of story.

Why does it have to be painless? Anyway, here you are again making zero allowances for what "Mr. 250K" does with his money. You just assume that if he doesn't go along with your plan, he is a "greedy little bastard". You're like the child who decides he doesn't like someone because they did their homework or chores and got to go play.

Well, yeah, if I lived in a community of two, my responsibility would be 50% and in a community of about 33 million - - well, YOU do the math.  And be sure to weight it so the handful of rich pay substantially more.  I don't want to hog any credit I'm not entitled to.  I'm just a small (but productive) cog in a large machine, but I do want to pay my fair share and I'll even advocate higher taxes across the board, as I do now, to get the job done, but I wanna make sure that Mr. 250K pays what's fair for him.

And of course you want to define fair, or have your representatives define fair as you want it defined. And if someone doesn't agree, then he is a "greedy little bastard". Again, this looks like nothing but childishness to me.

I'm really flattered, but you have to trust me on this one:  my maximum possible contribution would be less than the proverbial drop in the bucket.

Well, from what I have seen of your comments so far, a drop in the bucket seems to be asking a lot from you.

Guess you believe in a Swiss-style or Israeli-style military, the people in arms.  Guess you'd like to go back to the good old days when food producers certified their own product, and if anyone got killed, well, the marketplace would punish the guilty.  Better wake up one day and figure out what century you're living in.  Life is complex, problems are created by the interaction of many factors, government being one of them, and government will have to solve many problems whether or not it's the sole or even a contributing causative factor.  Think "Manhattan Project."

I believe in protecting people's rights, which means not demanding they all be made to obey my personal social preferences. Indeed, life is complex, and trying to force life into a box by forcing people to obey what I think or you think people should want to do is foolishness. That kind of massive top down control is not a solution to the complexity of life.

I'm a pragmatist.  Shooting the enemies of the people doesn't give me your idea of the moral high ground either, so I'm not particularly worried about taxing the rich more.  I see the problem and I try to fix it.  To erase the misery of the masses.  THAT'S the real moral high ground.  Lifting people out of misery.

Lifting people out of misery. Yes, you're not the only one who wants to see that. And one does not have to agree with you or be a socialist to believe in trying to help people out of misery. And this apparently "let's just tax the wealthy and fix it" solution of yours is not pragmatic in the least. It's foolishness. Erase the misery of the masses. It sounds nice, but it ignores that the masses are fundamentally individuals, not fundamentally the masses.

You know and I know that the greedy hypocritical little bastards will never say that, that's why I say it for them.  I know, and everyone else knows, that their opposition to higher taxes is not based on fairness but on greed.  THAT is just plain common sense, realism, and experience of life.

Nonsense. Prejudiced, envious, covetous, narrow-minded nonsense. I know that due do the experience of like and the experience of seeking understanding beyond the cliches, stereotypes and dogma.

<<Again, show me [Mr. 250K] isn't sacrificing any of his, as you said, before tax income to help out. He never ever gives to charity? Refuses to pay taxes? >>

Look at the need for massive social expenditures in welfare, education, housing, health-care, etc.  Look at the enormous wealth of the country.  Compare the one with the other.  There is your answer.

This does not prove that your Mr. 250K is selfish or greedy. This is far too simplistic and assumes far too much to prove anything, except perhaps that your position is simplistic and based on assumptions.

Compare the lives of the 500 wealthiest with the lives of 10 million crackheads.  There's your answer.  If Mr. 250K IS paying lots to charity, he gets a tax break, he gets to deduct from taxable income.  So the guy who is Mr. $250K MAY have paid to charity, but the net result is the rich have tons and the poor need tons.  WHATEVER they bin givin to charity just ain't enough.  Time for the government to step up to the plate and do the job right.

That assumes that government can do the job right. So far, it has not proven to even remotely have the ability to do the job right. But your comparison is flawed. The real comparison that needs to be made, if we are to find any actual solutions, is to look at the life of someone who became a "crackhead" and someone who started in poverty and worked his way out of it without becoming a "crackhead".

It's his fault because with all his wealth, power and influence, he didn't do enough to stop the train wreck.  He didn't contribute what he could, and more importantly, he didn't support candidates who would raise more (by taxation if necessary) because as great as the need was, he and his class allowed to fester and grow.  And now it's gotta be fixed, and the only way to pay for that is to tax the rich more.

Where in all this is the responsibility of the person who became the "crackhead". You're entire argument here seems to assume that the poor person addicted to drugs was forced into it against his own will simply by someone else having more than he did. This is not a practical approach to a solution to the problem. This is an ignorant and blind approach that will not solve the problem at all.

Yeah, like in your case MIS-directed by about 180 degrees.

I have yet to see how your prejudiced assumptions provide better aim.

MT:The five-year old is the selfish greedy bastard who clings to his toys rather than sacrifice some of that money to fund a crash course to prevent the further spread of human misery.

<<When you can prove to me that is the case, I'll agree. >>

Yeah, prove the effectiveness of a program before it's put into action and meantime withhold the raising of funds.  Nice trick.  Old trick.  That's why we want Obama.  CHANGE.

Misdirection is an old trick too. You've missed my point entirely. Not prove the effectiveness of a program before it is put into action. Prove that the "selfish greedy bastard" clings to his toys and never sacrifices some of his money to help people, and I'll agree with you that he is a selfish, greedy bastard. If all you've got is that he is wealthy, then you haven't proven anything.

And what the hell is this "we want Obama" bit? You're Canadian. Why should I care who you want to be President of the U.S.?

Shoulders his responsibility along with every other law-abiding taxpayer is the phrase you want, but it probably sticks in your throat because it's too honest for you.

Too honest? No, it hardly seems honest at all. Your idea of shouldering responsibility to help people seems to be merely paying your taxes. That isn't shouldering any responsibility at all. That is expecting someone else to remove the responsibility from your shoulders. Now that is honest, but I am guessing the craw that sticks in is yours.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Nobody here pays you to edit their posts - or even asks you to do it for free - and even if they did, I'm sure that they would not ask you to ridicule them in the course of your editing tasks. Is that how you edited documents when you were paid for it? Made fun of the mistakes?

You could pay me and find out...