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Author Topic:   Marxism
DC85
Member
Posts: 876
From: Richmond, Virginia USA
Joined: 05-06-2003


Message 151 of 526 (552927)
03-31-2010 7:22 PM
Reply to: Message 148 by Faith
03-31-2010 6:54 PM


Goverment is here to Govern
TAKING CARE OF means supplying basic means of existence. Good grief man. Restraining crime is what government IS supposed to do.
Who said this is it's job?
I thought the idea of the government was to govern
Here are some other words that are considered synonyms for govern
manage
administrate
direct
oversee
Well... It seems the government is here to manage the country and make sure the country running smoothly.
Wouldn't you say a business that has become powerful and abusive to the point where it is causing harm to general population should be regulated?
Wouldn't you say looking out for the health and well being of a country as a whole would help the country and make it stronger?
I say it would be poor management not to do these things

This message is a reply to:
 Message 148 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 6:54 PM Faith has not replied

  
Straggler
Member (Idle past 95 days)
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 152 of 526 (552928)
03-31-2010 7:25 PM
Reply to: Message 149 by Faith
03-31-2010 6:57 PM


What Is "Stealing" And What Is Not?
Taxes to run the society are not stealing.
But any one of us could make that exact same statement and mean it as wholeheartedly as you do. The disagreement comes over what constitutes "running society" and the founding principles upon which we want society to be run. I would say establishing fairness of opportunity such that individuals can be enabled to fourish on the basis of ability and hard work rather than being consigned to a set social position from birth is very much part of running society. Or at least running a just society.
Taxes to support other human beings because they cannot support themselves are what is stealing.
So taxes used to educate children who would otherwise receive no education is stealing? Supporting those bankrupted by repeated ill health is stealing? Supporting families impoverished by job losses derived from macro-economic circumstances over which they have no control is stealing?
Using taxes to pay bankers bonuses? Is that stealing? What things are stealing and what things are necessary to run society in your view? On what basis are you making your distinction? This is very unclear.
Edited by Straggler, : Fix quotes

This message is a reply to:
 Message 149 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 6:57 PM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 153 of 526 (552930)
03-31-2010 7:32 PM
Reply to: Message 146 by Modulous
03-31-2010 6:47 PM


Re: The disparity in the labour market
The Communist manifesto calls for and to end profiting from the work of others
But this is stupid. If someone has a farm or a buisness and hires workers the whole point is to make a profit or he wouldn't do it at all and nothing would ever get done and society would rot. Which did happen in Russia.
Stupid? Oh, I see what you did. It's not saying one shouldn't profit at all. That's stupid. It's saying that if your farmer got people to help with the business, he should pay them based on the value they added to his seeds/field/equipment/time etc by sewing, tending, and harvesting it.
Oh. Theory again, about to take down reality again. Sounds like a huge bureaucracy is going to be created right there to calculate and enforce this value, which is going to turn out to be so high the farmer can't afford to hire the workers, and the bureaucracy will also extract some of the profits for their service and all together this will raise the price of the farmer's product beyond anybody's ability to buy it and put the farmer out of business and he'll go on welfare and the farm will go to ruin and the workers will be out of a job.
ABE: Actually now the government will take over the farm and run it themselves and calculate the value of the workers somehow or other and they'll all get taken care of more or less on money taken from the rest of the population while the farmer will be reduced to poverty.
I'm all for a fair wage standard. Regulation. Sheesh, I really don't know what you think I'm saying.
I'm talking about fair from a Marxist point of view. Which would be related to the amount of value they added to the company's product.
Marx is a genius at abstract theory and an idiot when it comes to reality.
What I'm saying is that Marx's ideas do take greed into account. It is about the struggle that arises when the greed of the workers conflicts with the greed of the factory owner. It is about one proposed solution: make the workers also the owners.
OK by me if it's voluntary. But here's where violence and revolution come in to force this on the factory owner.
The situation I was describing was the situation that Marx was criticizing and attempting to solve.
Yes, I understand that there was a lot of injustice back then that did need correction and that is why Marx's theory got taken so seriously. If there hadn't been the problems, there wouldn't have been a Marx. If business owners had taken care of their workers better there wouldn't have been a Marx. Too bad his solutions weren't in the realm of reality.
If you think it is possible to become puppets to your government - that might be true in some sense, but technically the government of America is The People, so if you feel like a puppet - blame the idiots around you!
The bigger the government grows the less it has anything to do with the people. It's of and by and for the people in theory only these days. Millions have joined the Tea Party movement but they have been ignored and misrepresented and smeared. Only SOME of "the people" count, those that agree with this administration.
Where you went off the rails a bit there was the 'force us to agree with views we hate'. How would this work? Are you suggesting freedom of speech is being curtailed in some way?
Yes. The right has the voice of the radio but not the voice of the mainstream media who either ignore us or slant their stories against us.
I agree that state ownership is very probably a Bad Idea.
Just observing that the current system, even with regulations and the like, works in a way which could be construed as unfair. Workers very rarely get their real value.
But from the sound of it this "real value" isn't really so real, it's an abstraction born of theory that looks good on paper but in reality would probably bring the whole system crashing down.
In the present system the difference in true value and paid value is pocketed by the company, and therefore the owners of said company.
They are in business to make money. What other incentive could there possibly be for having the headaches of running a business?
I think when people put a load of work into something and realize that some amount of that work is to pay for somebody's expensive car and three month cruise rather than, to pay their bills, feed their kids or buy themselves a car that was built this decade - they do tend to get a bit bitter. Especially if it turns out that despite all the hard work they were doing the company failed and yet the people at the top still seem to end up wealthy...
Anecdotal. Who knows how much of reality fits this. But I also don't get the psychology here. You assume there is no burden on the business owner, as if the workers do it all and he just pockets the money. Business owners I have known spend prodigious amounts of time keeping the place running and have to deal with all kinds of disasters you have no idea about. The worker has no right to complain about what other people do with their money. Make sure the worker gets paid reasonably and that's enough.
of course you can start worker-run businesses if you like too. Fine by me.
Listen I've worked for a business here where I hardly got paid enough to live on. I live in a "right-to-work" state where wages AREN'T regulated and I don't like it. Now I work for myself but I don't even make what I made back then, but since I'm "self-employed" working at home although I have no employees but myself, this puts me in the camp of the hated "business owner" so I have to pay income tax on my pittance of an earning that some years I haven't been able to pay at all and the church stepped in to pay it.
Who is the target of the injustice, exactly?
It's not always easy to tell.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 146 by Modulous, posted 03-31-2010 6:47 PM Modulous has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 154 by DC85, posted 03-31-2010 7:46 PM Faith has replied

  
DC85
Member
Posts: 876
From: Richmond, Virginia USA
Joined: 05-06-2003


Message 154 of 526 (552935)
03-31-2010 7:46 PM
Reply to: Message 153 by Faith
03-31-2010 7:32 PM


Re: The disparity in the labour market
Marx is a genius at abstract theory and an idiot when it comes to reality.
Ronald Reagan was genius at abstract theory and an idiot when it comes to reality
oh wait... yes that's what I intended to say....
The bigger the government grows the less it has anything to do with the people. It's of and by and for the people in theory only these days. Millions have joined the Tea Party movement but they have been ignored and misrepresented and smeared. Only SOME of "the people" count, those that agree with this administration.
Yet Obama has proven to be more conservative then Bush as far as expanding Government. Yet I heard nothing about massive Tea parties back then... except for the person who started them Mr. Ron Paul who has now been plowed down by the the idiots who hijacked the "movement"
Yes. The right has the voice of the radio but not the voice of the mainstream media who either ignore us or slant their stories against us.
Who has the mainstream media? It ISN'T the left because the corporations pay for and own the mainstream media.....
I thought the left wanted to destroy business... hmmmm
I think you need to rethink this without listening to the druggie on the radio
hey are in business to make money. What other incentive could there possibly be for having the headaches of running a business?
of course they are but if they become to powerful to the point of doing harm to general population shouldn't they be regulated?
Edited by DC85, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 153 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 7:32 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 156 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 8:32 PM DC85 has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1435 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 155 of 526 (552943)
03-31-2010 8:18 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by Hyroglyphx
03-31-2010 8:32 AM


Re: Capitalism is about exchange and nothing more.???
Hi Hyroglyphx, perhaps you should read what I've said again.
You are speaking of two different things. You go back and forth between lines of credit (i.e. loans) to purchasing items outright.
Curiously, both of them still characterize the common element of capitalistic greed in taking more than is necessary.
You as the consumer have the choice to get a loan elsewhere because their APR is too high and tantamount to extortion.
Do you know that Muslims regard charging interest as immoral? Fascinating concept, lending without interest.
Islamic banking and finance - Wikipedia
quote:
Islamic banking refers to a system of banking or banking activity that is consistent with the principles of Islamic law (Sharia) and its practical application through the development of Islamic economics. Sharia prohibits the payment or acceptance of interest fees for the lending and accepting of money respectively, (Riba, usury) for specific terms, as well as investing in businesses that provide goods or services considered contrary to its principles (Haraam, forbidden). While these principles were used as the basis for a flourishing economy in earlier times, it is only in the late 20th century that a number of Islamic banks were formed to apply these principles to private or semi-private commercial institutions within the Muslim community.
In other words, your thesis that interest is necessary for banks to provide loans is false.
They have the choice to buy it or not to buy it.
Have you tried to buy a PC without microsoft on it? Some choice.
If you want to be derogatory and equivocate greed with capitalism, I really could care less what you call it. Just know that you are describing business and nothing more. Provide me any other system in modern civilization that deviates from this simple economic model.
Shoe on the other foot? It's okay to denigrate marxism, but don't anyone dare say anything derogatory about capitalism? Really, this is a lame complaint: look at the issue of the big banks and lending companies, and what outrages people is the greed and selfishness of the top managements at the expense of the rest of the people. Greed is rewarded in capitalist economies.
No, you're just making assumptions because you have nothing else to go by except to say that it is greed.
It is not an assumption that you clipped off the part of my post that made look like I said something else. It is not an assumption that with the clipped part restored your comment on it looks ridiculous and irrelevant. It is not an assumption that you made a mistake.
The fact that you can't admit your mistake is just another black mark. Of course you couldn't admit that Penn and Teller were wrong either. Must be fascinating to live in a flexible reality world.
I just took a snippet because its a redundancy. I saw nothing about it extraordinary.
In other words you don't comprehend the difference, and have blundered on in ignorance. Let me see if I can make it simple for you:
Me: You will normally be charged A + B + C to buy a product from a company.
You: Is charging A + B extraordinarily strange?
Your reply would be hilarious if it wasn't so ludicrous, because A + B ia a fair price for a product, and you have completely ignored the issue that C is the excess (greedy) profit over and above the fair price.
Yep, nothing extraordinary about it, whatsoever! In fact, even more money is embedded in the product because large companies have to pay millions of dollars in taxes. Instead of paying for them at the end of the year, they do this piecemeal by marginally hiking up prices to offset what they need to pay in taxes.
Congratulations again for admitting that greed is "nothing extraordinary" and a normal part of big business.
FYI - those taxes are part of the cost of producing the product (the B part), and they don't come out of the excess profit charged (the C part) - it's overhead. Once again you have equivocated between charging a fair price and charging an excessive price for the value delivered, and tried to obscure the issue by bringing in a red herring fallacy.
Certainly your simplistic claim that "Capitalism is about exchange and nothing more" is falsified.
RAZD, honestly, that is the only way any company can survive in which to give you goods. What business exists to loose money, that you think this is exclusive to greedy people?
You just don't get it do you?
Amusingly I have not asked for companies to give me goods, but rather to sell them at their fair value. That value is the cost of materials plus the cost of labor and the overhead of operating the business (that part of the cost that you asked if it was "extraordinarily strange" to charge). Everybody gets a salary and goes home for the day having earned their living making the product. They get a fair wage and the company sells product at a fair price.
Anything more than that is greed.
What you don't have is a company charging another 60% above the fair price, and where that excess only goes into the top management pocket, over and above salary, and that is not shared with the people that actually make the product.
Curiously, even capucin monkeys understand that some people getting more out of a deal than others is not fair.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...17_monkeyfairness.html
The question of whether human aversion to unfair treatmentnow shown by other primatesis an evolved behavior or the result of the cultural influence of large social institutions like religion, governments, and schools, in the case of humans, has intrigued scientists in recent years.
The new finding suggests evolution may have something to do with it. It also highlights questions about the economic and evolutionary nature of cooperation and its relationship to a species' sense of fairness, while adding yet another chapter to our understanding of primates.
Notice that in Message 94 I claimed that "... Sharing is consistent with human nature, you can see this in primate behavior, as well as the concept of justice, which is based on everyone getting fair shares" and that the above article substantiates this argument.
Meanwhile you have provided no evidence to support your arguments, and have used equivocation, red herrings and misquotes in your argument.
Enjoy.
Edited by RAZD, : clrty

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by Hyroglyphx, posted 03-31-2010 8:32 AM Hyroglyphx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 166 by Hyroglyphx, posted 03-31-2010 10:49 PM RAZD has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 156 of 526 (552944)
03-31-2010 8:32 PM
Reply to: Message 154 by DC85
03-31-2010 7:46 PM


Re: The disparity in the labour market
You assume an awful lot about me. I wasn't political in the days of Reagan though I thought I was a liberal and more or less was insofar as I was political at all, following the trends around me, and I don't listen to talk radio at all, haven't for at least ten years.
I'm not even particularly political now really, but since I was around the sixties radicals a lot back in those days I do know something about Marxist influences in this country, and whether they are "pure" or not is irrelevant to me. Most here are probably a generation younger than I am, at least, and you've grown up UNDER that influence and don't have my perspective on it.
About media influence I see anti-rightist bias in almost every story I read these days. Corporations must not be as right-oriented as you think they are.
And I've said at least half a dozen times that business has to be regulated.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 154 by DC85, posted 03-31-2010 7:46 PM DC85 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 157 by DC85, posted 03-31-2010 8:41 PM Faith has replied
 Message 158 by Theodoric, posted 03-31-2010 8:49 PM Faith has replied

  
DC85
Member
Posts: 876
From: Richmond, Virginia USA
Joined: 05-06-2003


Message 157 of 526 (552945)
03-31-2010 8:41 PM
Reply to: Message 156 by Faith
03-31-2010 8:32 PM


Re: The disparity in the labour market
Marxist influences in this country, and whether they are "pure" or not is irrelevant to me. Most here are probably a generation younger than I am, at least, and you've grown up UNDER that influence and don't have my perspective on it.
considering most what was said at the time was fabricated and propaganda and still is concerning Communism. I now more then ever am sure you don't know what you're talking about. You've proven this because you honestly think fascism , Socialism and Communism are the same thing.
About media influence I see anti-rightist bias in almost every story I read these days.
I need examples.
Edited by DC85, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 156 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 8:32 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 160 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 9:13 PM DC85 has replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9202
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.4


Message 158 of 526 (552948)
03-31-2010 8:49 PM
Reply to: Message 156 by Faith
03-31-2010 8:32 PM


I know this is futile
About media influence I see anti-rightist bias in almost every story I read these days. Corporations must not be as right-oriented as you think they are.
Any chance you could provide a sample of this bias? Didn't think so.

Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

This message is a reply to:
 Message 156 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 8:32 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 159 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 9:07 PM Theodoric has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 159 of 526 (552951)
03-31-2010 9:07 PM
Reply to: Message 158 by Theodoric
03-31-2010 8:49 PM


Re: I know this is futile
I wish I could without spending too much time at it. I also wish that you'd just take my word for it that this is how it reads to me. I KNOW you don't read the same stories the same way I do. Even if I showed you what I mean you wouldn't accept it. I see the bias, you wouldn't. I'd supply the information and we'd be arguing nastily for hours about whether it's really anti-right wing or not. It doesn't matter. I SEE the bias, you wouldn't because you share it as does most everybody else here. Do you see the anti-right wing bias HERE at least, because it's so thick it would take a sledgehammer to dent it.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 158 by Theodoric, posted 03-31-2010 8:49 PM Theodoric has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 163 by DC85, posted 03-31-2010 9:36 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 160 of 526 (552952)
03-31-2010 9:13 PM
Reply to: Message 157 by DC85
03-31-2010 8:41 PM


Re: The disparity in the labour market
considering most what was said at the time was fabricated and propaganda and still is concerning Communism.
You figure I got that anti-Communist propaganda from the Communist radicals themselves? Odd.
As for equation between all the isms, as I said communism in theory is a very different thing from what it is in practice. You think only about the theory. In practice it tends to become fascism.
As for anti-right wing bias in the media please read above post.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 157 by DC85, posted 03-31-2010 8:41 PM DC85 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 162 by DC85, posted 03-31-2010 9:28 PM Faith has not replied

  
DC85
Member
Posts: 876
From: Richmond, Virginia USA
Joined: 05-06-2003


Message 161 of 526 (552953)
03-31-2010 9:20 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by Hyroglyphx
03-31-2010 8:32 AM


Re: Capitalism is about exchange and nothing more.???
That incentive is interest. It makes loaning the money worth while, otherwise what is the point? You as the consumer have the choice to get a loan elsewhere because their APR is too high and tantamount to extortion.
I agree to an extent. However the competition you describe no longer exists. you need the banks the banks don't need you. They're aware of this and charge outrageous interest and fees. To say don't go there or don't shop there in the current state is really an ignorant thing to say.
They have the choice to buy it or not to buy it. If no one buys it, it forces the seller to bring down prices because they otherwise aren't making a return investment. You have to spend money in order to make money.
He controls the market and has a product everyone needs so he charges outrageous prices and people have little choice but to pay it. I don't know what country you're living in but this what the United States is now.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by Hyroglyphx, posted 03-31-2010 8:32 AM Hyroglyphx has not replied

  
DC85
Member
Posts: 876
From: Richmond, Virginia USA
Joined: 05-06-2003


Message 162 of 526 (552954)
03-31-2010 9:28 PM
Reply to: Message 160 by Faith
03-31-2010 9:13 PM


Re: The disparity in the labour market
As for equation between all the isms, as I said communism in theory is a very different thing from what it is in practice. You think only about the theory. In practice it tends to become fascism.
No... I wasn't the one who said in theory.
I think Communism leads to oppression. I simply pointed out that you don't have a clue what you're talking about because USSR style communism is still not fascism.
You also still have the Bizarre idea that Socialism and communism are the same thing.
You figure I got that anti-Communist propaganda from the Communist radicals themselves? Odd.
considering you don't have a clue what you're talking about I must assume they weren't
Edited by DC85, : No reason given.
Edited by DC85, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 160 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 9:13 PM Faith has not replied

  
DC85
Member
Posts: 876
From: Richmond, Virginia USA
Joined: 05-06-2003


Message 163 of 526 (552955)
03-31-2010 9:36 PM
Reply to: Message 159 by Faith
03-31-2010 9:07 PM


Re: I know this is futile
I wish I could without spending too much time at it. I also wish that you'd just take my word for it that this is how it reads to me. I KNOW you don't read the same stories the same way I do. Even if I showed you what I mean you wouldn't accept it. I see the bias, you wouldn't. I'd supply the information and we'd be arguing nastily for hours about whether it's really anti-right wing or not. It doesn't matter. I SEE the bias, you wouldn't because you share it as does most everybody else here. Do you see the anti-right wing bias HERE at least, because it's so thick it would take a sledgehammer to dent it.
Could you be seeing what you want to see? Maybe what you're told you see?
Like recently right wingers have been complaining about the coverage of the tea parties... I've seen these people in action a large percentage of them don't have a clue what they're protesting and going off on hate rants.
While I disagree with Ron Paul on most issues this "movement" is not the tea party that he started and has been hijacked by idiots. It's now dangerous. I've witnessed these people first hand!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 159 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 9:07 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 167 by Faith, posted 03-31-2010 11:54 PM DC85 has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1474 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 164 of 526 (552956)
03-31-2010 9:36 PM
Reply to: Message 141 by Kitsune
03-31-2010 4:27 PM


Re: Christian basis for socialism
As others have attempted to do here, Faith, I am still looking for an answer to what your alternative is to socialism. When I asked you you said,
I don't know.
And I don't know any more than I've said but I've said a lot.
So making people pay money is stealing, by your definition. And you admit yourself that few people are willing to do it voluntarily, certainly not to the extent that they would be compelled to in a proportional tax system. Surely this should lead to the conclusion that whether you agree with taxes or not, they are necessary in order for society to function.
For the zillionth time I've NEVER said we aren't to pay taxes.
Unless you can come up with something better than I don't see the point of going on about government "stealing" from the rich. I wonder if you feel the same about looking after the environment, though that of course is a different topic. Should people be given their freedom without government interference to litter, pollute the waterways and the air, not bother to recycle if they don't want to, and not give a damn about the consequences for others?
You're just making stuff up from some prejudice of your own and not paying the slightest attention to anything I've written.
There are plenty of people in the world who are concerned about the poor, not just Christians. (One of the Five Pillars of Islam is alms-giving, which is mandatory.)
Yeah, Mohammed got that from his patchy knowledge of Judaism and Christianity.
This is lovely, but it's not enough to hold up an entire society. Try imagining, as others here have asked you to, what things would be like if people didn't have to pay taxes.
I'VE NEVER SAID PEOPLE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO PAY TAXES. Where are you getting this, from some post you're writing in your own head? It sure isn't coming from me.
And if they gave to whomever they wanted to. How would we guarantee that people will receive their basic human rights? Who's going to maintain the roads and the schools, the police and the firefighters, in inner cities where only the poor and disadvantaged live? Who's going to make sure that if people are out of a job, there's a safety net so that they don't end up begging on the streets? It won't happen Faith. You'd have complete social disintegration.
I wonder who this "Faith" is you're talking to. She sure isn't me.
The rich in America are ordinary people who got rich, they aren't the oppressive ruling class.
You might try looking up old families that have passed money down the generations. They come from all political walks of life. We have them here in the UK but they are in the USA as well. Where did you get this idea that every rich American started out as an "ordinary person"?
I'm sorry, I didn't SAY "every" but I guess if I don't cross every comma and dot every t you're going to have me saying all kinds of things that never entered my mind.
FOR THE MOST PART THE RICH IN AMERICA CAME UP THE HARD WAY. Including the ancestors of those who are now born rich.
Gee you really are consumed with envy I think. Greed is only one of the sins.
Maybe you also subscribe to the old American dream that you can have whatever you want as long as you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and keep your nose to the grindstone?
No, I abhor that kind of thinking, as I also abhor the attitude of some conservatives I know that since they managed to get their act together by hard work that everybody who didn't must be a freeloader. Which I also said somewhere back there.
I'll try to get back to you but I have to say that this post is going to drive me crazy if I spend any more time on it right now.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 141 by Kitsune, posted 03-31-2010 4:27 PM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 169 by Kitsune, posted 04-01-2010 4:00 AM Faith has replied

  
Buzsaw
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 165 of 526 (552958)
03-31-2010 10:12 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by Kitsune
03-30-2010 10:16 AM


Christian (not) basis for socialism
Hi Kitsune. Good to see you back.
First off there is no Biblical support for government instituted socialism. That the little new religion of Christianity willfully and voluntarily shared with one another in their little circle at a time when they were being persecuted and oppressed does not equate to government instituted national socialism imposed upon all citizens.
In II Thessalonians 3 we read,
.... this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. ...
King David was so conscientious about private enterprise that when a citizen offered the kingdom a property to do sacrifice on. King David declined, paying full price for the lot. From Abraham all the way through the rich man, Zacheous, the Bible is rife with the rich and the poor, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all being rich.
Kitsune writes:
In 1930s America there were few welfare programmes. If you didn't find work, you lost your home and faced starvation. Migrant workers like George and Lennie in the book had no friends, no family, and moved from place to place in order to do back-breaking physical labour for very little money. Candy, an old man on the ranch, had been maimed in an accident and was working as a cleaner, but his ability to do even the smallest job in the ranch was fading with age. His biggest fear was that he would be fired any day, and would then be begging on the streets. These may be characters in a fictional book, but they were based on the social reality of that time.
Having been born in Western Nebraska in 1935 where there was a severe drout on top of the depression, I'm no stranger to poverty. Nobody died of starvation and begging on streets was rare. When I was about 2, Dad sold all he had at auction which along with some meager savings bought us an old 16 ft round top travel trailer with $45 cash left. He hitched up to the old Model A Ford and the family of five headed for Wyoming. We three children and the parents lived in the trailer while did some weed control for work. There was a short period when we lived in a root seller with a dirt floor. As soon as we could we rented an old ranch cabin which had Kerosene lighting, a wood cook stove and an out house. While there, Dad nailed a job as a mechanic at an oil company. When I was in the 2nd grade we progressed to out first house with a flush toilet, but the one room school house in the country still had a wood stove and an out house. From there Dad became employed by a Chevrolet garage as a mechanic. He saved up enough for a down payment on a house in town. During the war in about 1944 Dad sold the house and put down on an old garage down town with an appartment overhead. We moved in there and after the war Dad got a new car dealership. In a few years he was able to rent the apartment and put down on a nice brand new house at the edge of town. Then he bought an old cattle ranch and built a house on it from scratch.
Abe) Thanks to enterprising rich folks, my dad was able to work his way up the ladder to provide for his own, hire employees and support benevolent organizations who aided the poor and needy.
The only money Dad gave me when I got married and finished my 4 yr commitment to the US Airforce was $100, so again, I had nothing handed to me for my own start. There have been times when I've had to scrimp and scrape but through the kind of work ethics and frugality which my parents taught and from the invaluable Biblical principles, like my Dad, I've been able to build upon poverty via free enterprise and hard work.
I've gone in to all of this detail so as to show the progression from poverty to better times without robbing from the rich.
Thank God for rich folks. The more, the better. They are the ones who have to build businesses and hire the poor and the middle class. Many of them are ones who have had the means to buy from my own business and build it from a little rented tin building where I stocked it with what I had to sell untill I could afford something better. OTH, government has become the problem, continually building itself up, ever increasing taxes to pay for it's expansion and imposing ever more regulations etc which suppress free enterprise.
Whatever government subsidizes increases. Poverty is no exception. People as poor as my parents were would enovate and work to scratch up their own living. It worked back then and it would work now.
Back in the 1960 an old radio radio talk show man, Richard Cotton use to say:
Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal and equal men are not free.
Kitsune writes:
No rich Americans were giving to the poor in the sense you seem to wistfully wish they would, nor are they doing so now, nor will they. With the exception of a few philanthropists, people who get wealthy in our society do not tend to be kind-hearted, empathic people who have the benefit of their fellow humans at heart. More of a general (though not universal) rule is that the higher up the boss, the more of a greedy, hard-hearted b*stard he or she is. Socialism exists to force people like this to contribute to society because they won't do it willingly.
1) The more of them there and the more incentive they have to produce without government intermention and taxing, the more jobs they will provide so that the poor can get off their butts and go to work.
2) You appear to have no conception of how much the aggregate rich give. The more they make, the more incentive to give for write offs etc, for their own advantage. The founder of Catepillar gave 90% of his income away to needy causes.
Socialism works to equalize everyone monetarily which eventually eliminates the rich and impoverish the middleclass until like last centuries socialist blocks of nation impoverishes all, the workers having lost all incentive to produce, innovate and progress.
Kitsune writes:
Are you telling me that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett work harder than the person with a day job at Wal-mart and a cleaning job at night who struggles to support their family on minimum wage? Which of these has earned all their money "fairly and squarely"? And what sort of support do you think there should be for someone who has lost their job through no fault of their own and cannot find another one -- is that just their tough luck, because to help them through tax money is "stealing" from people who work?
Your implication is that these good industrious and productive people simply had all that they have achieved void of any risk, study, work, like it was handed to them on a silver platter.
You're forgetting how many thousands these folks have afforded jobs to so as to avoid poverty. The hard working folks whom they have afforded jobs to, in turn are, because of rich people like these able to share some of their earnings to benevolent causes.
Edited by Buzsaw, : As noted

BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by Kitsune, posted 03-30-2010 10:16 AM Kitsune has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 170 by Kitsune, posted 04-01-2010 4:46 AM Buzsaw has replied

  
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