What I find interesting, is that the voting on threads is typically at an extremist level. All bad, or all good...which shows me that the moderates are not voting, nor are the liberals...which leaves the klannish mutants registering their disgust. Good for the ET Dictator's website hits, so how could anyone complain?
Fair enough. But the issue would then become, the definition of pain. If 50% tax rate could apply to a globetrotter who after doing some shopping at Tiffany's in New York and he wants to take it to his girlfriends birthday tomorrow, who happens to live in Sydney, as well as the homebody scrooge mcduck who just wants to smell his money, then you have a winner, but how is that to be determined?
Plus there are never any more than 10 or so, and that's a high water mark. Extremists register on the bell curve numerically in the same place they do ideologically. A fun diversion, nothing more
I would define real pain as those people who can't afford proper health care, proper diet and nutrition, an adequate education, a purposeful sense of living, etc. So real pain for the ultra wealthy? Probably they could be taxed on income at 100% for the remainder of their lives and feel no real pain. No, I don't believe the framers and founders would be supportive of the ultra wealthy and disproportional influence they have on our government, while simultaneously avoiding a genuine fair share of the responsibility for our government and way of life in America. Those who get benefits like the ultra wealthy, and don't want to pay back into the system, are scum in my opinion, and I think Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and others would agree. Oh, Alexander Hamilton would take the side of greed...but he was never considered a great man or a great patriot by his fellows.
A diversion? A way to increase the ET Dictator's bottom line is more like it. However, since the vote is typically by the same people with the same ideology or hatred/love of the posting member...most people are not bothering to vote. Look at the number of replies to a thread, and the number of votes. What I find amusing is the fools who think their voting on a thread has any meaning or purpose, beyond increasing the ET Dictator's bottom line.
Therein lies the fight. The definition of pain is quite different based on born station in life, as well as acquired lifestyle. It is a problem to bring people towards the lowest common denominator. Did you know that there are primitive villages who would accuse one of witchcraft if someone in the village grew better crops than the rest? That tends to discourage innovation, which in turn discourages progress. An individual can only move as fast as the slowest person in the group. That is not healthy to any society.
Having no middle class and only a poor and ultra wealth class is not healthy to a society. A society that puts making money as the highest value is not healthy to a society. Take note of the greatest innovators and people who made a real difference to improve our society...and I think you will find that their primary motivation was not money. I know you appear to be a fan of Trump, but Donald Trump has not contributed anything of lasting value to our society.
Not really, Trump was born on third base. He is entertaining tho. True, but without the facilities in which to work, which requires usually a good deal of money then they get nowhere. I cannot help but wonder the correlation between great innovators and free markets.