Jesus was a Liberal Hippie

So if someone is in an accident and is left with crippling medicals bills because - through no fault of their own - they simply can't afford health insurance, is it right that their already hard lives - scraping out a living at the lower end of society - should be made in-calculably harder by hitting them with debts they can’t hope to repay? Is it right that those on the poorer levels of society should be denied life saving treatment, because they cant afford it when the great-white-males complain about the price of viagra?Naturally roads, and such are important, because let’s face it if everyone didn’t contribute to the road system, the rich wouldn’t have anywhere to drive their Hummers. What to the rich care if some old dude laid-off by their corporate ”HR rationalisation policy’ cant afford heating in the winter and catches pneumonia, and then dies cause he cant afford the medical bills that getting it sorted would generate? Its not inconveniencing them, so why should they pay to fix it, right?No. The views you are putting forward are that of pure selfish greed. It’s that simple. The life style of the rich and super rich aren’t that drastically affected by taxation (save for when they get caught out when dodging as much of it as they can) and increasing it by a small fraction will have little or no true impact on their standard of living. Now increase the tax burden of a person on the lowest end of the tax scale by the same percentage and it can have real harsh implications on their standard of living. It can mean the difference of not being able to make rent, or not being able to afford to send little Timmy to the dentist . Does that sound equal, balanced and fair?And don’t come the voluntary donation thing with me either. Most people who are well-off to rich. Will on the whole give a far smaller percentage of their wealth to charity than poor people. While this will usually mean they actually give more in pure simple money terms, it costs them far less to do so than a poorer person.If a rich person donates $100 to a charity, he thinks nothing of it that amount barely means anything to him. Someone on the bread line may want to give $100 to charity, but doing so will have serious financial re-percussions for him. To the poor person a charitable gift of $100 is a HUGE deal. When the rich and super rich make a big deal out of their charitable works, when it really doesn’t affect them (they can afford to be that generous and not impede on their own standard of living) then that is un Christian.Taxation isn’t theft. It’s part of the agreement for living where you do, if you don’t like that, then go somewhere else (as many rich people do)

You honestly think if Govt taxed business less they would pay the workers more?? LOL. How naive. All it would mean is the shareholders would get bigger dividends and that’s ALL that matters . But your concepts of what is theft and what isn’t seem largely to be based on the idiom “But what do I get from this?”. You can use roads and other public services, thus you perceive you are getting something for your money. But to use YOUR money to save a poor person from death (for example) doesn’t directly benefit you and so you define it as theft.Ok we will talk hypothetical here. Now we are going to do the ”sliding doors’ thing here so pay attention.Lets assume the good ”ol USA decides to implement a well funded public health service where anyone could get essential medical help free or at a greatly reduced cost. The taxes go up all round to pay for this but it works: lives are saved that would have been lost.Now 6 years later you are on your way home from a very good party. You are quite drunk and so you walk home leaving your car in the car park. In you current state you don’t pay enough attention at the intersection in front of a 24/7 convenience store and fail to see the truck turning. You look up when caught in the headlamps and realise this is it . . At the last second however you feel an impact in your side. As the clerk from the store cannons into you, carrying you out of the path of the truck, thus saving your life. . .
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. .OK switch back and now imagine that the tax hike to pay for this new health service was shut down in congress putting an end to the dream of health care for all.5 years later Jason, a store clerk working at a local 24/7 convenience store called Jays, crashes his motor bike and bangs him self up quite bad. The hospital bills are horrendous and financially cripple the young chap who had inadequate insurance to cover the expence. He can’t afford to remain in the city and so moves back to his folks across state to help free up enough money to pay his mounting bills.A year later you are on your way home from a very good party. You are quite drunk and so you walk home leaving your car in the car park. In you current state you don’t pay enough attention at the intersection in front of Jay’s convenience store and fail to see the truck turning. You look up when caught in the headlamps and realise this is it . . The truck slams into you killing you instantly.Now if some of your money had been used to pay Jason’s medical bills there is a very good chance he would have still been working at Jay’s and if he was working at Jay’s then thee is a good chance he would have saved your life. Is that enough benefit for you?Ok we were talking hypothetical to the extreme, but can you see that not all benefits can be foretold or are immediate? You never know what is going to happen and so assuming that some particular action, event or end purpose of taxation has no value or benefit to you is incredibly short sighted.This message has been edited by ohnhai, 05-02-2006 02:48 PM