Marxism

If nwr thinks stealing is only a crime if the laws call it a crime then we live in completely different universes. Stealing is wrong whether anybody calls it wrong or not. That's the universe I live in.

Example of moral shredding ideology:Instead of recognizing my generosity in being willing to pay taxes for public education despite the fact that I want my children educated privately, you call it "grudging" of me.Really, I am trying to get off this thread but not doing a very good job of it.Perhaps some communication is finally beginning to happen and I hope so but things are still way too sticky for me yet and I don't need my blood pressure going up again the way it did yesterday.So really and truly I'm gone now to watch a great Christian DVD series that should take me back into the objective moral universe I live in and calm me down.Then maybe I'll come back tomorrow.

Arguably it is because not enough was spent on public education where you live that your resort to private was necessary. Thus you would have benefiitted directly from increased taxation to fund this area. In general I think it is difficult to argue that good quality public eduction wouldn't be in the interest of the nation as a whole.But there is a balance and nothing is that linearly simple.

I will try once again - On what basis do you distinguish between those things it is necessary to spend tax and those things on which tax spending constitutes "stealing"? You keep being asked this (by various people) but just won't answer it. And if you and others lack this generaous spirit? Then what happens to education? Is it in the national interest to have a well educated workforce? Does this aid the propsperity of the nation as a whole in the long run? Do you know of any first world industrialised nation that does not have public education for all? Do you not see a rather important link here.........? Gulp!!!Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Even if Jesus does it?

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"Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Othersfor example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einsteinconsidered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws."-Carl Sagan"Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God." -Desmond Tutu

Hi Rahvin, perhaps we can discuss actual reasons for social programs to show how they benefit society as a whole. Been there done that as well. It is like insurance (indeed it is called insurance) that is paid with the hope that it is never going to be needed, but is there as a safety net if it is needed.There are stochastic elements involved that by definition are unpredictable and that affect some people while leaving others unscathed. It is not ability, knowledge, special blessing or skill to avoid such elements, it is random luck.A society benefits from having happy productive people, so programs that take care of it's people and helps them get past random stochastic misfortune and back into productive happy lives is just enlightened social self interest.Curiously, morality is just enlightened self interest as well, so it is moral for society to take care of everyone to some degree.It is also moral to take care of the elderly, the infirm and the young, people who are not able to be part of the productive portion of society. Again, this is just social self interest. By providing a safety net, society has fewer desperate people, and this benefits the rest of society by having fewer desperate people and more happy productive people.From an economic standpoint it makes sense as well. Faith (mis)characterizes welfare as stealing from people that pay taxes. Curiously, an economy is made by the flow of money, not by the hoarding of money, so putting money in the hands of people that will spend it on daily needs promotes the economy.If you consider that being "poor" means that you are incapable of saving money, but need to spend every cent you get on daily needs, while being "rich" means that you do not need to spend money, then it should be relatively obvious that if you want to increase the economy that this is better done by giving money to the poor than to the rich, and that giving money to the rich only results is less money in the economy. When something can happen to anyone (stochastic), the people that are affected should not be punished for it.A few years ago I was diagnosed with Follicular Lymphoma (see Cancer Survivors), and if I had not had (a) basic medical insurance and (b) lived in Rhode Island (one of two states that provides temporary disability insurance), I would have gone from productive to destitute to homeless to uninsured to dead. Instead I am still working in between treatment times.There is no cure, so I will be in and out of treatment for the rest of my life, and I now have a pre-existing condition. It will be no surprise, then, to find that I have a personal real reason to support health care reform, and that I am glad that the first baby steps have finally been made. Those who know me, however, know that my position has not changed because of personal reasons, just that this provides focus.Now perhaps Faith or ICANT could explain how it is my fault for getting this cancer, or for not being rich enough to pay for the medical treatments without insurance, but I'm not holding my breath.To my mind being against universal health care has always been rather stupid. Nobody can guarantee that they will not get cancer, nobody can guarantee that they will be employed and insured when that happens. And we are paid back with a good economy and a better society to live in, where crime is down and police are inconspicuous rather than elements of daily life.The economy trickles up, not down, and the more people participate the more it grows. We saw the failure of the trickle down economics recently - when the bottom was no longer able to sustain itself on the empty promises of economic improvement through giving money to the rich, the collapse when from the bottom to the top in just a few weeks. Bailing out the banks hasn't helped much either. You need to feed the base of the economy, not the top.It's social enlightened self interest.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : clrty

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Perhaps that is how stealing is literally defined? You didn't ask if he thought those things were right or wrong.. You said stealing which has a different meaning then just being wrong.This is why I said you are attaching emotions to the words themselves.Can you do this for us? Can you keep these things separate so we can discuss?I don't attach the emotions and morals to the words themselves. I apply them separately.In my mind stealing is the word stealing what I feel morally about the word is a differentQ: Do I think stealing is wrong
A:YesQ: Do I think taking money to fund welfare is wrong?A:yes (I don't but to make the point I'll say yes)See what I mean? Stealing is defined as unlawful takingPerhaps you could word it like this? Use the literal meanings instead of what it means to you?Edited by DC85, : No reason given.Edited by DC85, : No reason given.

And there you go demonizing people again. Or, more precisely, you are demonizing me.Nothing is a crime unless the laws call it a crime. That's what the word "crime" means.If you were intending to talk about things being wrong, even though not a crime, then I quite agree that is possible. And people do things that I consider wrong far too often. That it is not against the law does not mean that it was not wrong. When a baseball player steals a base, that is not wrong. And I'm guessing that you don't think that wrong either.Again, language is very complex. The whole idea that a word like "steal" has one true objective meaning and that you know that meaning - it is just laughable. I'll grant that we seem to live in different worlds.In the world that I live in, demonizing people is very wrong and unchristian. In the world I live in, if we disagree with government policies we express that disagreement at the polls, not by demonizing people.Incidentally, I consider myself a fiscal conservative. I voted for the Democratic candidate last election because at present the Democrats are the party of fiscal conservatism. And, in case that confuses you, I will restate it differently. The "tax and spend" Democrats are more fiscally conservative than the "spend and run up a huge debt for our grandchildren" Republicans. And "spend and run up a huge debt for our grandchildren" is a pretty accurate description of Republican economic policy since 1980.

I agree wholeheartedly. Indeed one large problem with the accumulation of wealth is that eventually people reach a limit beyond which they cannot spend what they are earning. At that point the money stops flowing,a nd the economy suffers as a result.It's also the fatal flaw with so-called "usage tax," where taxation is driven exclusively through outgoing money - something like sales tax. As wealth increases, the proportion of money earned to money spent rises. The poor spend nearly all of their money, which drives the economy. The wealthy hoard money, which halts the economy. While I am not in the same boat, my girlfriend is. As I've mentioned once before, she has HIV - a disease that, contrary to common perception, is not limited to those who "deserve it" (though I can;t honestly say that anyone "deserves" such a thing). I know of one man who contracted the disease from his wife, whom he was perfectly faithful to...unfortunately, she was not faithful to him. I know of aman my age who, as a boy, was in a car accident while travelling in Mexico, and was infected from a blood transfusion.And that says nothing about the millions of people in this country alone who are disabled due to no fault of their own and who have no recourse, no family or other source of finances to fall back on because care is simply too expensive and many of them cannot work. hell, even my girlfriend finds it extremely difficult to work even part-time because the pills that keep her alive and healthy also drain her energy and leave her feeling nauseous to the point of nearly vomiting constantly.Denying health care or even just making it more expensive for these, the most vulnerable people, is morally reprehensible. Allowing people like you or my girlfriend or the millions like you to fall between the cracks if you aren't fortunate enough to live in the right state or have a job (or in my girlfriend's case, a boyfriend who has a job where I can put her down as a "domestic partner" on my insurance) is simply unacceptable.Best of luck with your continued treatment, by the way. Indeed.I am of the opinion that "Atlas Shrugged" is one of the most harmful, morally repugnant books known to man. Trickle down economies only exist in the imaginations of Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, and their philosophical descendants.

Wow, I had no idea. congratulations! They grow up so quickly. Mine is already 7 and sometimes it seems like yesterday I was holding her in my arms. Good book; I haven't mentioned it here, though, because I felt it would add fuel to the fire for the reactionaries who think that Marxism and Soviet-style totalitarianism are the same thing. It's simply a very good satirical fable of what did happen in that country.You and just about everyone else here are pointing out the obvious problems with Faith's posts. If I added my voice again at the moment it would just to be to repeat what has already been said. I particularly enjoyed RAZD and Rahvin's recent posts. Instead of feeling frustrated by the ironic lack of social obligation on the part of the conservative Christians here, I am feeling quite cheered by the expressions of warmth and humanitarianism from others.

Okay faith I'm going to try something new. I'm going to to use names of Hypothetical people in hypothetical situations. Refer by names and numbers so we can be clear.hypothetical situation number 1 this one hits close to home as my best friend was in this situation and I want to make it clear that I don't think she's stupid like others have said just had emotional issues and isn't full control of what she did.1. Suzy loves her partner Tommy. Tommy Physically beats and psychologically abuses Suzy. Suzy always goes back to Tommy. The police are constantly called for the domestic violence.Why should the tax payers pay to make sure Tommy doesn't crack Suzy's skull or for that matter help Suzy get away from Tommy? After all many will argue that Suzy is making a "stupid" Decisions.Situation 2Joe lost the great Job that he had for many years due corporate budget cut to pay out higher dividends to share holders. He now has no way of keeping his house that he has just a year to left to pay. Now all the savings that he worked hard to save must now go into feeding the children and other necessities of living and that can only last but so long. They've received some help from his church but it just isn't enough.... Joe soon may be homeless and an unproductive member of society.Situation 3Do you remember Suzy? It's now been two years Suzy is now away from Tommy and has the two children. She is working as waitress at Applebees and going to school on Government grants. She is also receiving help to pay for an apartment and food stamps to help with expenses.Is Suzy "stealing" but wasn't before? I honestly don't understand what the differences are. If Joe got unemployment would he be "stealing"? How are these programs "stealing' but the police department isn't? Edited by DC85, : No reason given.

I love this post of nwr's because it finally allowed me to get a glimpse of the assumptions so many here seem to share that produce the thinking I abhor. My straightforward logical comments are being called "incendiary" here in that typical condemnatory tone you all adopt which is so puzzling and crazy-making. Wow, I think to myself, "incendiary?" It's an ordinary English word used to describe an easily recognizable behavior. But this is interesting, he's EXPLAINING something. He's explaining how he thinks, and apparently how so many of you think because we're already into this condemning thing you all do that is so puzzling and frustrating to me. I keep trying SO hard to get this ordinary concept across and now I finally understand that I can't and will never be able to because it immediately gets absorbed into this whole other world view that turns it into something else, and there is no way out of this other world view, that is now very clear to me thanks to nwr's post. Anything I say goes through the looking glass into this other world and doesn't come back out. Another strange idea about what I'm saying. I'm not really thinking of the "recipients" when I use the word stealing, not in the sense used here. I'm not classifying people, I'm talking about the method of taking money, but in this looking glass world I suspect that is pretty much a meaningless distinction so I say it at least for my own benefit. NWR apparently believes that if law takes the money from us that can't be stealing. Well, this is pretty much what I was saying must be in your minds and now it's confirmed. If government does it, to you that's not stealing. To my mind that is craziness, but I see what I'm up against now.ABE: The word UNLAWFULLY. In the sense I speak of stealing I think in terms of a universal absolute moral law, not human law. Human law can't alter the universal. And I believe that until the last few decades or so you didn't have to be a Christian to recognize this universal absolute sense of concepts that overarches human constructions.

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I don't blame welfare recipients for anything. It's the government I'm blaming and people who don't understand that stealing is stealing. I supersized that paragraph because it's an edit it and I want it to be noticed, not because I'm "shouting." To me it was a straightforward logical conclusion from what I was observing which now is confirmed from the above statement. But just as you personalize the ideas of "stealing" and of "deserving" you also pesronalize this logical point that you are condoning stealing. Well, you ARE condoning stealing, but I'm not personalizing it, I'm making a logical point. You don't KNOW you are condoning stealing, I'm not moralistically accusing you the way you accuse me. You are taking offense as if I were accusing you. No, I'm trying to show you that your thinking itself condones stealing. I feel like laughing in despair knowing that you aren't going to be able to hear this either. Right. You can't hear what I'm saying or the spirit I'm saying it in. There's some set of assumptions in your head that precludes ever hearing what I say about such things. You MUST personalize and moralize it all though I'm not personalizing or moralizing anything. That certainly seemed then to be the way you think and after nwr's post I know it is. Of course you don't believe it's stealing if the government does it, somehow stealing becomes not stealing if the government does it. But as I showed to anyone who can follow logic, it IS stealing no matter what you call it. Truly this is Wonderland if words can change meanings simply because the powers-that-be so decree. Well I SHOWED that you condone stealing according to the objective meaning of the word. I don't go around fingerpointing and condemning people in outraged indignant tones the way you all do, and I see now that the reason you do that is that you personalize and moralize words and twist them to fit your assumptions so they lose their objective meaning. Apparently the Red Queen has decreed that stealing is not stealing because she wants it not to be and my head should be lopped off for using the word in its objective logical sense. Indeed you have. The most valuable post for me ever on this site. The kind of hysterical laughter produced by cognitive dissonance is all that's left to me, at the idea that the objective meaning of the word is my own private meaning while your moralistically twisted community-defined meaning is the true meaning.Same as Razd's indignant denunciation as he condemns me for thinking people aren't deserving when I'm only concerned about the objective meaning of the term "stealing." Wow I am SO glad to understand why this horrific abuse occurs here.What I've only suspected has been confirmed, that communication here for me is impossible because we're always going to have to argue our utterly different world views with each issue, and the way you all come on with your moral indignation and haranguing interrogations against the simplest most straightforward statements of mine is not something I want to keep encountering. I'm not speaking moralistically or condemning anyone but it seems you can't think in any other terms.I'm still interested in learning more about this ideology that does this (something to do with Postmodernism I have to suppose) but I don't like being on the receiving end of it. And I think it's futile because any hope of communication between me and any of you means pretty much having to reinvent the English language and that's a bit beyond my abilities and ambitions.And there are more of you than there are of me and the saying about how who is to be master is all that counts ends applying over and over.abe: Apparently it was Humpty-Dumpty, not the Red Queen and not a community consensus, but it's the same point.Cheers.And thanks again for this post. I can't tell you how much it has helped me understand what goes on around here.Almost can't wait for the replies as you all rush to turn what I've said upside down again, insist that I'm the one misusing language, and excoriate me for all kinds of things you imagine I'm saying.Not.Edited by Faith, : quote code mistakeEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : add Wonderland quoteEdited by Faith, : last paragraphEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : add large size paragraphEdited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You, Faith, are well into "this condemning thing". Your posts are incendiary, precisely because you are into "this condemning thing."Apparently you do not see that in yourself.

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matt 7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

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And still no-one here has any idea as to the basis upon which you are differentiating some taxation as socially necessary and some as "stealing".And still every industrialised nation has adopted policies deemed necessary for the successful running of a nation that you consider to be "stealing". Yes - Even the most free-market enamoured fiscally conservative ones.Why not abolish tax altogether? Why not let individuals take care of their own security? Why not let each landowner build their own roads and then charge tolls for their use by others? Why have any national infrastructure at all? Seriously. Why?

Nope I absolutely don't see that in myself at all. It's entirely in you all and you are projecting it on me and it is why I can't get anything across here.