The moral imperative for a 100% estate tax...

Great punch in the face for those who crawl out of poverty to your position.

 

Sounds like an excellent way to ensure the poor stay poorer. My guess is you're still in junior high and failing.

 

I don't want libertarians to control the country, I want the country (as in the state, not the people or area) to be abolished.

 

So you "avoided white guilt" and now feel the need to make up for that? Wow, I guess you are suffering from white guilt guilt then. The first clue was the word "moral" in the thread title. Justifying redistribution by making a "moral" case for it is quite weak. Who are you to define what is moral for everyone?

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And that is jacked up.

 

I don't know what could be less moral than stealing other people's money. But if you are that filled with white guilt as a result of your white privilege, you live in a free country where you can donate your inheritance to the government, or better yet, a worthy charity. I have yet to see one liberal brat of a ultra-rich family do that.

 

There is no moral imperative to steal from people due to one of the seven sins, envy.

 

Um sorry one of Paris Hilton's shopping trips does more good for the economy than all of those government handouts combined. I have no problem whatever with the conspicuous consumption of rich kids, taxes have already been paid on all of it often in multiple ways at multiple times not to mention which the sales taxes on 20 k of goods can't possible hurt the local community or the state. However I do have a problem with what amounts to selective grave robbery.

 

The imperative is, someone earned it and you want it.

 

So you want the constant state of war that persists when there's anarchy?

 

Most people who are rich did not get rich because they were born rich, were good looking, were well connected or got lucky in the stock market. Or even the smartest although being smart helps it's using the intelligence you have and bettering that through education which is a choice.

Actually the vast majority of people I know who are poor or lower middle class are there because of their own actions and choices. The people who are middle class or upper middle class or even wealthy are there because of their own actions and their own choices. My wife and I have no college education, did not have wealthy parents, never got lucky in the stock market and don't necessarily have "well-connected" friends. But we scrimped and saved all our lives to have wealth and have done rather well. Who are you or anyone else to come and take that from our family because of envy?

 

If you've ever wondered why a prominent component of leftism is "subjectifying" morality....

 

There are lots of poor societies where crime is almost non-existent. There are lots of poor areas in our country where crime is not markedly higher. Crime breeds poverty not the other way around. The crimes that have just occurred in Ferguson will breed more poverty. The jobs will be gone, the tax base will be gone, the commerce will be gone.

 

Actually a little research into class mobility in the United States versus other countries might change your mind. Start by researching the GINI coefficient and go on from there.

 

Envy is not a sin, it's what keeps the economy going.

 

It embraces the fundamental conservative belief that family is the cornerstone of our society and through our families we strengthen ourselves and better ourselves and our future generations by creating wealth we pass down through our families ensuring they will not be impoverished and can pass down even more to the future generations.

Perhaps you should try to sustain your position by explaining what YOU support and not fallacious painting what conservatives believe.

 

You understand the person to whom I was responding was claiming "economic inequality" so I asked what "economic equality" was, how it would manifest itself and where that has ever existed. Sorry if you are incapable of reading.

 

We know, although you don't, that poverty tends to create and sustain crime. Especially when there is social stratification. The haves, the have nots. And this is little more than common sense. For when a person has a lack of resources, which it takes to live a decent existence, he will steal from others. And if he can make money by breaking a drug law, he is turned into a criminal, which we call crime.

There may be an exception to this rule, but very few. Culture enters in as well. But if you go to india, into a poor area, you best secure your possessions. Same in any poor area in an American city. People are not stealing for the thrill of it, but to live what they see as a decent life, with the needed resources.

How much property crime do you see in a well to do, gated community, that is committed by the people who live there? Cause/effect. There is no need to steal, to rob, so there is no effect. In fact, if crime is committed in these areas, its the poor who sneak in to do it. Cause/effect.

Yep, dammit, we have to live in a cause/effect universe, and no one can weasel out of it. Wish you could.

 

I know all about the philosophers of ancient times but thanks for acknowledging what you propose has never existed or provided more for more people than ours.

 

There was a time where capitalism hadn't existed. I think a meritocratic political and economic system would take most of the good stuff from capitalism and representative democracy, but leave out most of the bad that inevitably comes from their systems.

 

If you have a point to make then make it and support it.

 

Utilizing the increasingly arbitrary authority of an armed and coercive government to satisfy covetous greed
is only "moral" in the eyes of the covetously greedy.

 

And when it did come about through liberty and economic freedom the standard of living and quality of life for the most people was bettered.

Well they aren't exclusive you know. In our society the most talented, the most educated are generally those that move upwards IF they choose to put those talents and that education to work. It's up to the individual. That fact is that capitalism provides the best systems to provide the most opportunity and the most success for the most people. When people are free to act in their own self interest and reap the rewards of their efforts society in general is better off and affords the most freedom and liberty for all.

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Well yes it is if you believe in those things and envy brings down societies, it is greed that drives it to greater things.

 

So do you consider wanting a more equal opportunity to be covetously greedy? Equal opportunity is obviously myth that's never going to be achievable. People would need the same parents, same nutrition, same role models, same teachers, same education, etc, and I realize that trying to keep everything the same would make everything worse off by slowing progress. Keep in mind that publicly funded schools are an example of a meritocratic example. There's not a whole lot of people championing the idea let people be completely responsible for educating their own children. Why? Because they know we'd have one of the least educated societies in the world and it would set us back.

 

In my town, we wouldn't have much for performing arts if not for the philanthropy of the daughter of one of the richest men ever to live here. She didn't earn much on her own, but gave very much.

 

I consider demanding equal outcomes covetously greedy. in as much as the far reaching ramifications such represents to the rights and liberties of future generations, I consider utilizing the increasing authority of a post-constitutional "progressive" government to attain them criminal