I was born in Nebraska in 1935 in the midst of both severe drout and depression. Nobody starved. Neighbor helped neighbor. Some, like my family relocated from the drout. People scrimped and sacrificed to become the most prosperous nation on the planet via free enterprise capitalism, benevolence, reverence to God and hard work.
So, IOW, you were a child of the New Deal, right? The same New Deal which heavily subsidized the farmers of Nebraska and elsewhere. The same New Deal which encouraged minimum wages and the expansion of unions which, however you feel about them today, allowed an American blue-collar middle class to thrive and prosper. You know, the ones hardest hit by the Depression.
The same New Deal which brought government funded electricity to the rural farm areas in which you were born (because the electric companies sure weren't gonna do it on their own...no profit, right?) and invested in the infrastructure of the nation to allow more opportunity to more Americans.
We have a mixed economy which has served us fairly well. I don't see Obama wanting to expand the "welfare state" as you paranoiacs imagine. Taxing for infrastructure, education, security (both economic and physical) and healthcare is vital for the continuing success of the nation. We need roads, power, communications, police/fire departments, an educated citizenry, healthy people, etc and it is just as obvious now as it was in the 1930's that people are falling through the cracks no matter how hard they work.
People who have worked for 20+ years at the same factory are losing their jobs, healthcare and pensions on a whim from the corporate office. Are they lazy, too? What about the women who want to go to school to better themselves, but they have a kid and no family to support them so they have to work? Are they lazy, too? What about the farmers who have spent their whole lives on the family farm only to see their livelihoods destroyed by "free trade" or the inability to compete with the big boys (same with "mom and pop shops" vs Walmart - how many people do you know who say "hey, let's support Jim's hardware store instead of going to Walmart even tho his prices are twice as high?" I know I do, but do you?)? Are they lazy, too? Should we not have a system in place which protects against personal catastrophe even if it is sometimes taken advantage of by some of those who you deem "lazy?" (And I live in NYC and live in a pretty impoverished area in Brooklyn and have been in both the unemployment office and the food stamp office...the mythical bling mama with a cadillac is nowhere to be found)
So, what do you propose? Churches? The kindness of strangers? Where were they during the depression? What about now? Where are all these good people helping out the homeless and the hungry in our own country?
You admit that people are essentially greedy (including those you don't want to give your money to) so how do you propose that we help those who are left with nothing? At least the "socialists" like me (and I am not quite socialist) recognize that people are greedy and depending on the charity of all has brought us nothing much to show (especially depending on the charity of those with lots of money and lots of power). You seem to think that the world operates like your small town in Nebraska where everyone knows everyone and gosh darnit lets just help him out. It just doesn't work that way and it might seem unfair to you, good Christian that you are, to take even more money than what I assume you already give to help the poor among you, but not everyone is as good and giving as you, Buz.
Most people's money is earned on the backs of those less fortunate or on the backs of those who agitated and died for the benefits we have today. So get off your anti-socialistic high horse and thank all of those people who gave you overtime and holiday pay, non-lethal working conditions, farm reforms, rural electricity, paved roads, non-leaded gasoline, product safety, all of the advances of government subsidized science, cleaner air and water and your $2.98 t-shirt from Walmart.
"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -
The Iron Heel by Jack London
"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea
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