Please define "a real hippie." For a few years (before you were born) I lived in my 1969 VW microbus, smoked a lot of dope, grew my hair, didn't hold a regular job, dropped acid whenever I could get it, didn't bathe every day, etc. Does that make me a hippie? Did it then? Oh, yeah, and I was vegetarian for a good part of that time and I liked patchoulie incense. (still do) I am confused with this label, "hippie." I prefer to not be put in a box labeled "hippie" or anything else. I am simply a human being that thinks out things the best I can when I consider them important enough to do so. (whether "hippies" do this or not) I own guns, but I can't say that I like them. I never really liked them, but I see a potential need for them, and for the same reasons that our Founding Fathers did. I kinda think of them like I would a car, or some other machine. I don't much think about them unless I need one, and I have one in case I do. Guns are not the issue. As I see it, Freedom and Liberty are the issues, and Ron Paul is the most qualified candidate to protect these, as his record clearly shows. Peace.
i agree.. but you're leaving out that the ppl who make minimum wage also get back a large chunk of the taxes they pay, along with the social services... i'm definitely not libertarian
Can we please get over the myth that rich people just evade taxes... the top 5% of wage earners are paying a little over half of all taxes - ten times as much as the bottom 50%. With the Earned Income Tax Credit low wage earners can pay zero or even negative taxes; this has been the case since 1975 (as tigerlilly is saying). Also, as far as minimum wage - 2.7% of workers get the minimum wage, a quarter of them teenagers. This is not a country dependent on government dictated minimum wages.
Those I have known who have worked at Walmart made more than minimum wage. This was true at fast food places as well. I don't know anyone who makes minimum wage any more. Maybe it is just for the area I live in. I don't know. I am not so sure that if all regulations went away that suddenly companies would drop wages to almost nothing. That would assume unlimited labor in the free market. If there is no one willing to work at Walmart for $2 an hour then they would have to pay more. But in this situation you have to consider that there is a new element, the self employed. If you have all regulations and tax burden removed working for yourself becomes much more desirable. You no longer have the higher tax burdern compared to working for someone else or the heavy regulations to give you a headache. Why work at a crapy job you hate that pays very little when you could sell your own goods or services?
Some of the people earning minimum wage are people who get tips, i.e. waiters, bartenders. So that cuts my 2.7% figure down even more.
Here is good interview to get an idea of what Ron Paul is about http://realserver.bu.edu:8080/ramgen/w/b/wbur/onpoint/2007/06/op_0621a.rm
