Which are you?

rickd, while it is reassuring to think that people succeed or fail on their own merit the truth is that many honest hard working people fail and many lazy dishonest people succeed. The whole paranoia of redistribution of wealth comes down to a fear that money will be taken from the deserving and given to deadbeats. I pay into Social Security knowing that I probably won’t get as much money out as I pay in. I also know that if anything happens to me that my wife and daughter will get SS benefits that can not be canceled. Part of the money I pay in is for the insurance aspect of SS rather than just a retirement benefit. Someone else who becomes disabled may get more than his share of benefits than I do but I’m fine with that. Of course there will always be a few that find angles to abuse any system but it is a poor excuse not to help people to say that some poor people deserve to be destitute.

The single biggest cause of personal bankrupcy isn’t people living beyond their means or refusing to work, it is catostrophic medical expenses. I’ve worked hard my whole life, saved a bit for emergencies, retirement, and my daughter’s education but if I or a family member got cancer or other major health problems I could be wiped out. I’d gladly pay a few percent of my income to have government health insurance that could not be cancled because I changed jobs or on an insurance company’s whim. Insurance companies profits have gone up over 1,000% over the last several years because they can refuse to cover anyone who they think they will loose money on. As businesses their goal is to maximize profits by charging as much as they can and paying out as little as they can get away with. This is not a model for something as important as health care. Health care shouldn’t be affordable only for the young and healthy.

In our current economy only the top few percent of earners have done better while over the bottom 95% have done worse. The concentration of welath over the last 30 years among fewer and fewer people is the largest threat to the middle class our country has ever faced. Our democracy is simply unsustainable if we become a nation of a very few wealthy and the vast majority being surfs or wage slaves, if only the few can get a decent education, if only the few can influence policy for their own benefit. That is the direction this country is going. I am embarassed that there are so few populists in either party.

You may see a government who helps people get back on their feet after bad luck as a nanny state but I see it as an essential service. Why should each of us have to live at the whim of fate when it isn’t that expensive to have a safety net for those down on their luck?

“If you ask a liberal poihnt blank, sometimes they will tell you the truth. I was talking to some retired friends of mine about redistributing wealth. I point blank asked them; ‘ so, you want to take the money earned by someone who works hard, and has had success, and give it to someone who has been lazy, and has achieved very little?’ And they said . . . yes! And that is where I differ.”

What a bunch of crap. The money “earned” by that “someone” in most case money made through there own powerful position, and unlimited access to government to make sure that they are relieved of any of the tax burden in this country. Using ones money and power to lobby government to protect ones already massive wealth is not what this coutnry was built on.

Why are you so gung-ho about protecting the wealthy in this country, when most of them couldn’t give a rats-a$$ about you?

The ACLU is neither a liberal nor conservative organization. They defend the civil rights of anyone regardless. They defend the right of NAZIs to march in a parade through Jewish neighborhoods. They defend the rights of anyone who’s civil rights are being violated because they when anyone’s civil rights can be abridged than all of our civil rights are in danger. I’m not familiar with the case you mention but yes they will defend the civil rights of anyone including people they detest. This is a principled approach. The principal (civil liberties) is more important than the group involved. This is difficult for many to understand in this day and age when people think that the end justifies the means and injustice is fine so long as it doesn’t effect them and happens to someone else.

It is the ACLU that tries to defend our country’s core freedoms of religion, speech, assembly, privacy, etc.

He should pay his fair amount of taxes just as the rest of us non-millionaires are expected to do. When I pay my taxes, I do not consider that I am being punished for my hard work. As an american who benefitted from our system, your friend should be happy to pay his fair share.

Wow, filetofspam. That was quite an elloquent and concise post. Well done…

I would just add that the number of people who are trying to scam the system is a tiny fraction compared to the number of people who legitemately need help. But the wealthy in this country don’t have to scam the system, because they control the system. And we all pay for it.

it is also them, who want to destroy the values first instilled into us. Such as religion, freedom of expresion and things such as that.

That’s quite a thick filter you’re looking through… how sad…

No one says “ooh he has more than me - tax him!” So please stop trying to imply that. If he is a millionare, then he should be pay his fair share. Nothing more, and nothing less. And it is up to all of us to decide what is fair, through our representive government. It should not be solely up to the people who already have the money and power to decide how much, or how little they pay.

Thank you filetofspam. Well said. Well said.