How Many Libertarians on this Board Were Born Into Poverty?

Indie

You seem to have sidestepped what I’ve said by asking questions of me.

Wouldn’t it be more polite and much more of an honest debate if you actually addressed what I’ve presented, first?

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Anyway

Q - Who should make the decisions as to who requires assistance and what form that assistance should take?

A - Independent institutions charged with bringing about a society that is fairer and better to live in, where all are given a reasonable opportunity, of having a healthy and fulfilled life.

Q – By what means should it be financed?

A – Through democratically elected for taxation.

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As to the question of refusing assistance - it does seem to assume that assistance would be given when not needed.


But of course direct assistance is only one aspect that should be a holistic approach aimed at bringing about a society that is fairer and better to live in, where all are given a reasonable opportunity, of having a healthy and fulfilled life.

 

Not only are libertarians born in poverty, but so are republicans and democrats as well. Membership in or supporting any party is not a promise to wealth & riches. My family has been die hard republicans since my mother's father was little, and possibly beyond. Yet I was born into poverty. You know you're in poverty when you have to walk a couple miles to a field so you can steal produce for dinner. The clothes I wore, sometimes sewing doesn't work. Sometimes you have clothes that you have already outgrown, and get made fun of by the kids at school because they're too small for you.

Though disabled, I still worked my ass off. I still worked hard. Harder, I think, than the normal person. Because having a physical disability makes you work twice as hard to get the same job done. And now that I am 41 and semi-retired, no I'm not rich, far from it, but I still pull a part time temp job if I can, and NOTHING makes me any madder than when some stupid jackass comments about how I don't look disabled, or how I work just fine so I'm not disabled, or calls me a welfare fraud or even a trust fund baby.

We are obligated to afford others the same rights & privacies that we expect to have ourselves. It sucks to be poor, but some people deserve being poor I think, when they are more concerned about other people's income.

 

That means you wish your parents didn't send you to school. But then the church could come in rather handy.

 

The question I was referring to was:
"Should those who make better decisions be forced to share their success with those who perpetually make poor decisions? Yes or No?"

Government has neither the time or the resources to examine each case closely therefore it is quite easy for the system to be taken advantage of.
I know a few people who are taking advantage of the system at present, and have known quite a few who have done so in the past, and bragged about it.

I've tried to clearly state that I am against Federally funded social programs, while I have also stated that such programs should be localized through charitable organizations.

I am simply against government redistribution of wealth by taking from some and giving to others. The U.S. unlike England and many European countries is not a Socialist or Marxist based form of government.

Didn't I tell you some time ago that the U.S. has a Constitution, and is a Republic, not a true Democracy or Socialist Democracy?

I've not said no help should be given, but feel each individual has a right to determine how, where, and to whom they provide help.

What you're really saying is that you want those who earn or have more to be made responsible for achieving your goals, are you not?

I support the existence of many Democracies, not a single Democracy where a vast number of disassociated persons can acquire a majority to rule over a minority. People are then availed a choice to find greater freedom and experiment with government in ways that do not affect the entire nation when the experiments go wrong.

When government exercises control over the spending of huge sums of money, it only attracts more attention from large corporations and those who can benefit from how government spends that money.

Of course you wouldn't want that aid to make them productive, self sufficient, and tax paying citizens. They might then tend to become more conservative voters as a result. I've always found most people, though not all, tend to be more cautious when spending money they have earned themselves.

 

Government institutions?

I would support that totally if EVERYONE had to pay the same rate of taxes, say 30%-35%? That would just about cover the annual budget for the present, and the rate could be increased as necessary in the near future.

From what I've heard has come out of the White House, there are some advisors who have made statements of evaluating ones worth at both ends of the age spectrum in deciding what health care government should provide. So you might assume denying assistance when needed instead. I believe Obama himself even made a statement about giving Grandma a pill to reduce pain instead of more costly hospital care.

I've never felt the U.S. lacked opportunity for anyone to achieve an acceptable degree of success.

 

I have the solution.

Flat taxes.

Individual pays 500k a year, bill gates pays 500k a year, koch brothers each pay 500k a year, etc.

Sounds fair to me, it's the same for everyone. Individual should be the one at fault if he can't make his payment, the koch brothers have no trouble with THEIRS. In fact, they'd probably be getting a massive tax break.

Sounds like a very low tax too, for SUCCESSFUL people who are not drains on society. Individual is just one of the eternally poor/worthless who shoulda thought about how he'd pay his taxes before he put himself in that dead end position, not even a CEO or ANYTHING. Loser.

 

liberté, égalité, fraternité

the liberty-nuts could use a little of the other two concepts . . .

 

ou la mort ?

 

You began thinking rationally.

But quickly went off the deep end.
A 15% tax rate should provide the Federal government adequate resources to perform its responsibilities, with the addition of a temporary surtax in the event, and for the duration of a "declared" war.

Why should there be any tax breaks, or subsidies at all?

Does government need $152,000,000,000,000 per year to operate?

A 15% flat tax would produce over $2,000,000,000,000 yearly, and if government was forced to operate using sound economic principles, the nation, including the people might prosper as a result.

If you feel you're not getting a fair share of the pie, then make your own pie. Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs among many others did just that. Or, like George Soros, Warren Buffet also among many others you can look for ways to acquire larger shares of existing pies.

I beginning to wonder, are there really any "libertarians" at all on this forum? Marx was NOT a libertarian.

 

I just don't see how you don't understand the difference between taking 15% of what someone has if they're hardly able to function as it is, and taking 15% of a CEO's salary.

It simply garuntees you'll always have a poor class, instead of giving them the hand up into society. No one chooses to be poor, or ALMOST no one, and those that do aren't paying taxes anyway, they're sitting in a boxcar right now, or eating the perfectly good fruit out of the dumpster behind the supermarket.

You seem much more concerned with being "fair" to very rich people in the most petty way (take 15% of some mcdonalds working ghetto dwellers salary) than actually fixing ANY debt. Why not tax the very rich at 40%, with a sliding scale down to 15% at middle class, and say 6% right on the poverty line, down to very little or nothing for those with nothing to give?

If you care about the debt, it would do a lot more good if the poor got a leg up, so they could be middle class. If EVERYONE is paying 20% taxes because they do well for themselves, it's a lot more revenue if EVERYONE is paying 15% taxes, but only a few people have enough money that 15% even means anything.

And again, if you care about fairness, we get into the spending power problem. If you tax bill gates at 40%, so the fuck what? He'd never feel the impact. But if you tax someone below the poverty line at 15%, it could make them homeless. But that's just how life is, they should have thought about that before being turned into a corporate peasant, born into nothing with no way to get anything. Way more fair to bill gates if they're evicted than if he pays a bit more so they can continue their meager existence.

 

Let's see, suppose we're talking of someone making $10,000 a year and a CEO making $1,000,000 per year. The difference would be $148,500, or $150,000 in taxes versus $1,500 in taxes. I would consider that a sizeable difference.

That's an unfounded claim, and there are numerous reasons for the existence of a poor class, none of which redistribution of wealth appears to have shown signs of eliminating.
There's a difference between a "handout" and a "hand up", and the former does not necessarily result in the latter.
At some point being poor can easily become a rational choice to make, by the continuous increase of what is made available in a productive society to become considered as rights or entitlements by politicians looking to get elected or re-elected.

Would you consider it fair for a poor person to rob a rich person? If only robbed of 40% of what he was carrying, would that make it fair? Why should making government the thief make it fair?

We have had a progressive tax system for nearly a century and things have only progressively worsened.

No President has decreased the debt since Eisenhower, only the rate of increase.
15% remains 15% and those earning twice as much or more are paying twice as much or more in taxes. Do you see them getting twice as much or more in government services as a result?

Wouldn't it then be fairest to simply take all of Bill Gates wealth and distribute it equally among the entire population? After all you seem to feel that he and/or his company stole the wealth from everyone don't you? Why not a law that mandates all businesses are allowed to sell at profit up to the point they can provide all their employees and management with the equivalent of the national average yearly income, and all production from that point forward must be given away free. Everyone would earn equally the same each year and think of all the production that would be made available for free, or would it?

 

Wow.

As others said, you're arguing by way of taking things out of context, implying things that are not true but that you don't techinically say, putting words in my mouth by implication, and generally pretending to be stupid.

We know you're not THAT stupid, you can form a COHERENT argument, even if it's totally bullshit.

I could pick your post apart and stomp it to shit. And then you'd just quote me and do the same thing over again, raising the same false objections in different places, as you've been doing for 10 pages now.

I give up on you.

If anyone ELSE, of either opinion, would like to talk about this, I'd be happy to.

 

Be specific, what "things" are you talking about? What "things" have I implied? What "words" have I put in your mouth by implication?

By bullshit, I assume you mean that I disagree with you?

Then why not do just that? What are the "false objections" you are claiming?

That sounds like a defeatist attitude. I just hope you don't apply it to making your way through life in hope that government will always be there to provide your needs.

I take it you would prefer to talk with someone who might agree, support, and strengthen your views? Perhaps Balbus will console you?

 

The last line in your post sums up the things you where asking me to showcase in your bullshit.

I clearly said of either opinion, and you said that you take it that I would prefer talk to someone of my own opinion.

You're very much aware of what you're doing and why it doesn't prove a point, though you may not see that it's discrediting your opinions in the matter.

It's not defeatist to have better things to do with my time than argue this foolishness. I'm working on politically introducing my ideas, actually. There's worthwhile conversation to be had on this forum, and it's not with you.

Again, if anyone else, of either opinion, is interested in actual, honest discussion or debate, I'd love to talk.

 

So you did, and I clearly "asked" if you would "prefer" to talk with someone who "might" agree, support, and strengthen your views, as noted by the punctuation "?" at the end of the sentence.

Is it really? The point being? And in what way have I discredited my opinions? In your opinion, of course.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to expand on what the worthwhile conversation might be?

You can ignore this post if you care, as I am not likely one you could bring into your fold.

 

One word.

Implication.

If I where a mod, you'd have to write a 500 word essay on implication to re-enable your account

 

All any of us can do here is attempt to understand what others mean by the words they use, and respond in accordance by asking questions. As in the sentence you wrote above, I would assume that you were implying that "If you "were" a mod", and NOT "If you "where" a mod", you would exercise that power with impunity, not to mention immaturely.
You might ask yourself, from where I might have derived that implication.

 

the 15% you quote is very close to the social security deduction for a self-employed person, as there is no employer to split it with

i have not earned enough $ to pay income tax since maybe 1989? but am supposed to be paying around $900 a year in ss

am i supposed to ask for a rent reduction? eat less? turn off the heat?

for a few years i simply put the damn things on a credit card, and eventually burned it out, without paying off much or any of the principal

so i simply disappeared

is that the glorious future individual wants to see?

 

And, in your essay, I would expect you to address this sort of thing, including your own sneaky use of implication to mean things without SAYING them to prevent being called, and your intentional misunderstanding of other people, and pretending that they, too, are implying sneaky things.

Wu, I think that it's exactly what he wants. If you're living partially off the books, you have fewer freedoms, and more ways in which you can be controlled. Fascism only matters if it effects people above individuals imaginary "drain on society" line. Unless he's considerably richer than he lets on, I doubt that he understands that he's below the "drain on society" line that those in power want to create. Just like the tea party, protesting to put themselves in the poor house while lowering their boss's boss's boss's taxes.

 

Perhaps you should visit a library instead of wasting time here if it's an essay you wish to see. Try reading about early civilization in the Middle East and contrast it with the societal agenda of the Left today. Look also at early democracies and what resulted in their inevitable failures.