We have a progressive tax code. The poor pay little or no income tax. The wealthy pay high rates of tax on income, investment profits, real estate, and consumption(sales tax). A moderately sucsessful wage earner pays out over half of his gross income to various levels of government. Since you are a self proclaimed socialist, this high level of taxation is paramount to your agenda.
Apparently you have no concpet of how a civilized and socialized democratic society actually works. What is your vision, a return to land baron and serfs?
Truman, Ike, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton came from humble beginnings. Ask Nelson Rockefeller or Ross Perot if great wealth guarantees success in the polls.
How about a return to a virtuous society. A civilized nation where those who choose to be undereducated, self abusing, and resentful have more pride than demand the fruits of those more successful.
My take on this deal is two-fold: 1) Due to the Internet we've become a nation of arm-chair presidents, governors and congressmen. The problem there is obvious. We need to let the government do their job; everyone thinks he/she can run the govenment better than the government can. We are too preoccupied now with every news article that comes out. "Micro-minded" is the term I am thinking of. We need to go on with our lives and focus on what we can do to be most productive individually. The nation will benefit. 2) True, our entire governing structure including the Constitution is grossly outdated and outmoded and flawed. Our forefathers did not have all the answers. It's as if we've thinking we are still in a horse and carriage when in reality we are in a high tech car. The horse is gone. (One) example of a flaw in the Constitution is this: There was never any thought taken nor built into the body of laws that deal with nations whom we've gone to war with in regards to how then they are able to come into our nation, live and conduct business. We wiped out Japan, then said, "Welcome to our nation!" We won the Mexican/American war - now look how many Mexicans are here making this nation theirs by overpopulating and taking complete cities as their own romping grounds. This is inherently letting the enemies of our nation in freely to do what they want to do, and it is a great flaw in the Constitution. The forefathers simply never considered it. The national debt is also a reflection of a flawed Constitution. Our Bill of Rights and Constitution need to be re-written, re-vamped and be brought into the 21st century, in line with the way things are now. The weak links need to modified and done away with. It's the only way our nation can survive and prosper. The Coin
In that I believe that members of society, especially the most fortunate members have responsibility for the well being other members of society, especially the least fortunate, and that the wealth they have or generate is a product of the system of our society more than personal effort....so if you think that makes me a socialist, call me a socialist if you will. That you have no social conscience is par for the course, the self centered and narcissistic typically have no vision beyond their own reflection.
Taxpayers today have more of their income taken from them than the serfs did and about as much say so in how they're governed. Do you even acknowledge the danger in letting those who are not taxpayers, and in some cases not even citizens, dictate how taxes are collected and distributed?
ART: >...the wealth they have or generate is a product >of the system of our society more than personal >effort....so if you think that makes me a socialist, >call me a socialist if you will. Ok, "Socialist". >That you have no social conscience is par for the course, >the self centered and narcissistic typically have no vision >beyond their own reflection. There goes ART with his personal attacks again. Since it's a trading forum we'll just call it "ART's Mean Reversion". JB
After taxes, the serf's standard of living was equal to today's standard of living? Should non citizens vote, no I don't think they have earned that right. Living in this country, earning money, and paying taxes alone is not a sufficient measure of voting rights in my opinion. Is there a danger in allowing the "non producers" to dictate how taxes are collected and distributed? How would these non producers finance their political campaigns to be in a position to dictate how taxes are collected and distributed? Besides, we have the safety of a representative democracy, as evidenced with the electoral college and the 2000 election. A pure democracy would have Gore at the helm right now.
Well, then all that would happen is that big taxpayers will vote to raise taxes on people who pay little or no taxes. Burger flippers will be whacked with a 10k flat tax, equivalent to about 0.00001% for Bill Gates and co. Also, not all government decisions are about how to spend taxes. There is also the issue of passing laws, deciding upon what is unacceptable immorality, and so on. The entire system of law-making would be corrupted by those with the biggest wallets. The problem is not that the rich get stolen from disproportionately. It is that anyone gets stolen from at all. The entire system is based upon legalised theft and bribery - attempts to make that "fair" and to remove corruption are as likely to succeed as trying to make a mafia extortion racket "fair" and uncorrupt.