On equality:destroying one of the favorite arguments by the liberals

My better idea is to have a tax system whose goal is to pay our collective debts, and not to fine people for producing exceptional results. It's scary that you think that type of success is an offense which needs to be deterred.

But you have provided the example I was asked to offer at the start of the discussion.




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Agreed.

That's what happens when you join a club of 316,000,000 people and that club votes to have waffles together every other Sunday morning.

*shrug* That stuff is frustrating, but for now it's worth putting up with because of all the benefits of membership. (... and the waffles aren't that bad.)





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You missed the point, consider an earnest bolshevik in Russia of early 1910s. Do you think he will take you seriously if you tell him that a guy by the name of Stalin eventually will take over and reign with an iron fist which would spell the misery of millions?

He would most likely introduce you to a psychiatrist that he had heard of and went on a tirade against you for smearing his beloved ideology.

Do liberals work for perfect equality which would invariably cause serfdom? Yes.

Do liberals know they are working for perfect equality which would invariably cause serfdom? No.

Can you convince liberals that they are striding on a very dangerous road that they themselves won't really find the destination very desirable? Most likely not.

 

Or a flat tax system. You know, the more you make, the more you pay? And treat everyone like, equally?

Woooo Scaryyyy!

 

I know this will come to you somewhat as a shock but I actually am an underground secretly admirer of Ms.Rosenbaum and I have been a hardcore atheist, covertly donating to various atheist organizations (yea most of them are liberal but hey, what can you expect) for quite some time now.

And there is nothing ironical. Go read the 9 sins of the Satanic cult. More tasteful than the crony 10 commandment is it not?

*DIABOLIC LAUGHTER* Muhwahahahaha.

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name.

 

A. I'm not a conservative, independent.

B. What's this thread all about again? You uh... you have a black belt in diverting topics or something? You made me lost in my own thread.

 

so that long post is just saying republicans do not support equal rights?

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As with every topic, the REAL reason for the libertarian/conservative opinion is the fear of someone else taking one's "heard earned" money.

It is a pretty sad world view if every single issue is considered through the lens of monetary gain only. However, that's exactly the world view that the capitalist system is imposing on us.

 

No, it's you liberals who are obsessed with money. Never in my life had I heard one liberal who proposes to force university professors go to a grimly undereducated trailer park hick and give him free lessons on quantum physics. Never. It's always redistribution of money, fortune and wealth.

 

... requiring folks who can do more to do more may be necessary with our current level of spending. But I don't think it's a desirable thing. It's certainly not a fair thing (by definition). It doesn't treat people equally and yea, it's scary some folks think it does.




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I've noticed that folks who start a conversation with "what you have doesn't matter" often end it with "give me what you have."




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Tissues exist for issues....jk I'm lost too.

 

I agree with some of what you are saying, but I want to point out that we don't give a down-scale option for many of the things that are expensive in our nation.

We have only one health care system. There aren't two different emergency rooms. There isn't a community health infrastructure. Doctors aren't allowed to do stuff on the cheap - they must follow major regulatory restrictions. And, doctors are required to make huge investments of time and money to earn the license required to allow them to practice - meaning they HAVE to charge a lot. BigPharma owns medicine, and what they choose to provide is affected by what will make huge dollars - which can be argued as necessary due to federal regulation. Is it any surprise that AIDS solutions require lots of seriously expensive pills daily forever or die?

Our government spends gigantic amounts of money on our military. We spend close to the amount that all other nations combined spend!!! Those with less income should realize that they aren't wealthy enough to attempt to control the behavior of all other nations on the planet, and that we should behave more like a normal nation - UK, Germany, Japan, Australia, etc. in terms of dollars per capita spending on "defense". But, no, they do not have that option. Those in America with money and power want to control the world. In fact, maybe the SHOULD control the world - but there are a lot of folks struggling who should not see that as a valid expenditure for them.

We have huge regulation on food, automobiles, and all sorts of other products for reasons that appeal to those who have the money to pay for the value that may come from that. I can't legally drive a cheap clunker that I can maintain myself and I can't use public transit, because my state is focused on making enough roads and bridges for personal cars. I can't legally buy non-pasteurized milk from a local farm I trust. Etc.

I don't mean this to be a complaint in any way.

I just want it known that we design America through our legislatures. And, issues such as affordable health care, affordable transportation, affordable food, affordable housing, affordable control of the whole world, employment law that allows people to live reasonably within our society, etc. are not particularly high on the agenda.

 

We have many health care systems. We have more than two types of emergency rooms. That is changing with Obamacare, but health care wasn't something our nation provided. It was something we dealt with in our private lives and people did so in many different ways, using many different systems and resources.

One person might elect to be part of a HMO and pay more to have an assigned physical manage all aspects of our health maintenance. A less expensive option was to open an HSA and pay most of our own bills but have insurance for catastrophic events and to be sure we get the best rates. Private companies have offered a whole spectrum of programs. Many states and cities also offered programs free to low income folks and discounted for others, the Medicare system is available to older citizens, the VA is a separate system...

Dealing with an emergency is expensive. But knowing ahead of time where urgent care facilities are and what they can handle, knowing which hospitals charge more for emergency services, and even knowing which ambulance to call if you really need one can have a huge impact on cost.

We do have regulation of many aspects of health care and that adds expense. The cost of blood draws, x-rays, setting a broken arm or removing a skin cancer can vary widely depending on whether you choose to go to a large hospital, a small hospital, a public clinic, a private facility, or a doctor's office. But something like heart surgery has regulations that will make it expensive and reduce your options. We made that choice as a community, and I think those protections are worth the cost.

That said, most costs we pay are impacted considerably by choosing how much we will have someone else manage our health care. Many of us paid much less by preparing for and understanding better our options. Many of us liked our existing health care systems, and we were told that if we liked them we could keep them. That's turning out to be not true.





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That is ALL one system (outside of Medicare and VA). It's just a big system. And, it is not designed for those with little money. In fact, our system is designed such that more gets spent on health care here than anywhere else in the world - by FAR!

You mixed in ideas of what happened in the past - which we as a nation rejected. You may have liked out old system, but tens of millions of people were desperately trying to avoid that system, or were simply rejected by that system as being too poor or too risky to lead to an adequate source of profit.

You addressed only this one example of health care. I gave more than one example to demonstrate my point.​

 

No. Not that kind of equality. That's just unfair. Real equality is taking the smartest and best looking and dumbing them down or shaming them into being embarrassed for their advantages....unless you're a rich liberal. You get left alone.

 

I'm not sure how you can argue the mid-wife that lives down the road, the blood lab in town, and the HMO hospital another town over are part of one system. Much less that they share a design.

Even so... if you believe those are one system, the VA is a second, and medicare is a third we've established there is more than one system.




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I don't think that's how it works. I think it tends to go the other way around. People who step up and take control of their environment demonstrate power and produce wealth. In contrast, those who choose not to, those who prefer to ask others to assign them tasks or give them a job as a way of turning their time into something valuable, contribute less and so have less money.

It's not that those with money want to control the world, it's that those are willing to control the world come to more wealth. And those unwilling to do it, come to less.




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The various parts of our system that you point to are all under the same law, they all use the products of BigPharma, they are all designed to solve problems after they occur, they all are backstopped by the ER, etc.

We have Medicare and VA, but the discussion was about how our system is designed for (and by) people with money. These two other systems aren't available to (for example) me. So, saying there are multiple systems is nonsense, as few people have a choice. And (by the way) the health care provided by those systems is essentially the same anyway. It's the same BigPharma, providers work under the same law, etc.. Also, note that both systems are pretty much being starved to death without any real concern for those who can (or must) use those systems. Medicare doesn't provide DIFFERENT care - it just provides LESS care, because we don't want to pay for it.

Again, HC is one example of the wealthy getting the system they want while others must attempt to live within that system, whether they can afford it or not.

Let's not fixate on HC - it's only one example.

 

Well, your argument doesn't quite apply to the point.

The point is that we live in a society that was/is designed by those with wealth.

Those without wealth in our society can not afford wars in Iraq, Afg, Libya, Palestine (where we help Israel drive West Bank residents from their homes). The poor in the USA can't afford to support the repressive and failed regimes in Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, or to be killing people with drones all over the region. They would not choose that direction (at least if they thought about it and looked at their bills). Those tasks are NOT required for our security in the US. We do that for stability and other economic reasons and out of a moral sense that as long as we are super wealthy, we should try to stop injustice all over the world - objectives that those who are NOT super wealthy would never think of doing - at least not with military assault.

Those WITHOUT wealth must live with the fact that gigantic amounts of wealth are being sucked out for use in these objectives rather than focused on issues THEY see as important.

 

Appreciate your candor. You are the very few liberals who openly admit you are absolutely after absolute equality. You will spare no effort in eliminating any and all inequality.

Very admirable actually, your straightforwardness that is. Many of your peers spending too much time double-dealing, double-talking and wiggling.

 

While Daybreaker hasn't really said what you are implying, I would also appreciate some candor form you. You didn't answer my question from earlier in the thread:

"At which point do libertarians/conservatives start seeing inequality as a problem? Clearly, when all assets end up to be in the hand of one person (the opposite, and equally unlikely extreme to the projection of conservatives that all liberals want fully equal distribution of wealth) the economy will come to a halt. Will that start to be a problem when the 1% have 50% of all wealth? 90%? 99% Having asked that same question to the liberals, please answer the question for yourself."

So, please, be honest in your answer.

 

Because they all have to abide by the same law, they're the same system... not sure I agree with that logic. I'd also say that we're all attempting to live within the law, with the tools we can best use. And yes, that means folks with excess wealth will lean more heavily upon that tool; those with more time will use it; those with exceptional intelligence will use it; those with more strength...




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That's an impossible outcome. Folks there are certain resources that are always in our own hands. Our time, our skills, our creativity... you could own all the cash in the world tomorrow, and the day after I could come up with a solution to a problem you don't have.

Wealth can be created, it's not some static resource that we'll someday run out of or that someone could corner the market on.




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In your opinion, these people without wealth would prefer wealth be focused elsewhere. Whose wealth?




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