Quit (*)(*)(*)(*)(*)ing about the rich

What I'm saying is that the world we live in would not work without contracts. It's not just an opinion, it's a fact.

Well that was the subject at hand (contracts being needed/not) so I assumed that's what you were talking about. Also I disagree that the rich deserve or need more rights/power/protection than anyone. We are all equals, though the unfortunate reality of things is that some are more equal than others due to the way our government works. That's why I'm saying limit the power of government and you limit the inequalities in it.

I completely agree, I'm sick of people gaming the system with loopholes and other BS. If things weren't so complex that kind of crap wouldn't exist to begin with.

What are you talking about? We all have plenty of opportunity. Know how I, my girlfriend, and everyone else I know went to college? Loans. None of us had a silver spoon up our asses and now I'm a computer programmer, my girl is a paralegal, my friends girl is making about $100k as a manager, he's a independent contractor; you just have to try. You can succeed, just do it.

 

You're not getting the whole contracts and property rights don't exist just to benefit the rich part. That's not why they exist at all. Property rights exist so that we can own property and do as we wish with it, and contracts exist to secure a promise between two or more entities. They are not social services.

 

They certainly sound like social services. And welfare benefits the wealthy a lot more than property rights benefit the poor, who don't have much in the way of property.

 

The wealthy have never hurt me. The biggest threat to my life, economically, has been me. I do however have a beef with banks. But Obama bailed them out. And unions...same thing. Ten million jobs are going to illegals. Millions more to China. But Obama's doing nuttin, unless amnesty for the peace of mind of illegals counts as something. It sure doesn't put food on my table or lend peace to my mind. But hey, I'm just an American. So what do Americans matter to this administration. Heck, it's still not certain that their leader is actually an American. Go figure....kinda makes sense in that regard. Taking cheap shots at Romney doesn't make any of this go away.

 

Johnny, America's problems can't be solved without social cohesion. Guess what you folks on the left can't have? Social cohesion. That means America's problems won't be solved. They will fester like infection in an open wound getting worse as time passes.

The left can rule, but it will rule in hell. You folks on the left face corrosive internal dissent and foreign powers like China doing their best to weaken you.

It's not going to get better. It's going to get worse Johnny.

 

It's hard to build. It's easy to destroy. Guess what's going to happen.

 

If you define social services loose enough to define everything the government does as a social service then yes, however by your standard definition no they most certainly are not. Contracts and rights fall under the law.

 

So what's the solution?

As I said above if you want to define social services so loose as to encompass everything the government does as a social service then yes they could be considered social services, however I don't define the law as a social service, but rather as the law. I believe the rules we live under to be defined as something separate from 'social services'.

 

The system has been gamed... and reasonable people realize it.

 

That's putting it too kindly. Asking fat cats and GOPers to be reasonable is a pipe dream too. Nice ideas though.

 

What do you mean by 'social cohesion?'

 

I think I agreed with that. Even so, the sub-thread running throughout the issue... is how the wealthy have been allowed to game or weight the system we all live within. It is so obvious and it needs to be addressed.

The wealthy are allowed to earn a great deal, but we cannot allow them to own ALL or something so disproportionately LARGE, that they could ultimately wield the power of government itself.

It's the manner in which the "contracts" are written and enforce, that I'm talking about.

Okay.

We're together there. I though what one interlocutor said to me to the contrary earlier was preposterous. The truly wealthy have access to far more legal protection/assitance than the avg. working man.

People are equal or they are not. And if we cannot approach things with that standard in mind, the recipe we prepare will only produce the same troubles we see today. If the voices of those protected by the U.S. Constitution aren't equally, so that we ALL play by the same rules; then all we'll have is trouble brewing.

I see your suggestion... but I do not agree with it.

We'd better mount-up POLITICALLY and address that kind of stuff; this is just about the last chance we'll get for a very LONG time (if Romney wins); those on the Right are VERY much about hearing the wealthy far more than hearing the working class citizen.

I think you are mistaken. Relatively speaking and based upon the widening gaps in income (between the wealthy and the poor), what you say is hardly the truth.

I can see that happening; I'm not against a nation investing in the education of its people. In fact, I think we should be investing even more.

I'm not against you or your girlfriend making it; not at all. I'm educated myself as an electronic technician and musician. Part of my schooling was based upon loans as well, and I'm in the upper middle-class also. Even so, I can see that the system has been made TOO EQUAL (to play on what you said above) for the top 5% of income earners in this society.

We need to fix/alter that.

 

Rich Libertarian Landowners made this country, they were the founding fathers, not socialists as we see today, they don't believe in working or competition to create wealth, prosperity, even a great nation.

However, we must pick on them, since the majority aren't like them, its natural to have envy, they have the best lives, modern day kings like seen in England, we must put a stop to that.

 

How did these rich landowners obtain their land exactly? Was it given to them??

 

When I can buy an American made 50 inch flatscreen TV for a couple hundred let me know. Until then I'm buying what is cheapest. If I had to pay the prices American workers demand for their products my quality of life would be about half of what it is.

Exploiting Chinese workers lets me live a higher quality of life.

 

Many may feel as you do... but I can clearly see the benefit of paying a little more to help our own society.

 

Of course! From Walmart, no doubt! Child labor is cheap for you and highly profitable!

 

Yep. Buying from China (considering the working conditions there), is not going to ever be the total solution for maintaining the middle class in America.

 

Social cohesion is the end product of some element of shared consciousness and identity. Shared consciousness and identity don't exist unless there is a unifying principle that actuates the hearts and minds of the residents of a territory.

In the absence of social cohesion a polity seeking to govern the residents of a territory can't act effectively.

China has social cohesion based on ethnicity and culture. Israel has social cohesion based on religion. The Soviet Union had social cohesion based on Slavic solidarity and ideology. America once had social cohesion based on an ideal, but the ideal died.

 

We do have a significant degree of social cohesion here; it is not always comparable to that of other nations.

If you ask someone what it means to be American, they can sense it... even if they cannot list ALL that it means.

 

Can you articulate the unifying principle which animates all Americans?

 

There will always be the rich and the poor. Socialism (Obama's policy) is to take from the rich and give it to the poor so that everyone is in a similar wealth strata. Since work will not be 100% tied to what one receives in revenue, incentive is blunted which ultimately brings everyone down to the lowest common denominator.

Except, of course, the elite government officials that distribute the $$$$$. This is not unlike a feudal system where the King and his minions forcibly collect $$$ and produce from the working class producers and then distribute it to their chosen favorites to buy things like protection, political power, etc.

Both feudal and Socialist systems are similar in that the result is to keep the producers in a certain societal strata and the 'rich' in a certain societal strata.

In the U.S. it is possible to move upward and downward in the social strata because we place the most value on individuals acting for their own benefit ideally free from overbearing government regulation, control and draconian government taxation. We had a Tea Party in Boston for that very reason. Now we find ourselves once again at the precipice of falling into overbearing Socialist policies where we have government (the elite) telling US we HAVE to PAY for things for the 'common good' with nothing other than executive mandates trumpeted and supported by a lapdog main stream media that purports to be 'objective' fooling a lot of We The People in order to support the the 'official' position.

This is more like a feudal dictatorship than our traditional Democratic, Representative Republic.

 

If you are an American yourself, you realize that enough of what makes this America is right there in front of you. Don't try to convince someone they are breathing air, as they are standing strong and healthy before your eyes. And certainly, America has been worse off, than it is today.

The U.S. Constitution is full of the principles which you obviously aren't contributing to what's obviously "American". That (fortunately) addresses a great many human aspects, which many other nations have YET to actually address as well.

We have our problems sure, but there are indeed laws and uniquely American values which bond us all as citizens. If you don't believe that, just go down your local street and try to tell people that they aren't "American" (I don't really advise you to do that).

 

Wrong, wrong, and wrong. The answer to the question is opportunity, the quest for a better life, which only freedom allows for. I know you couldn't have possibly answered the question correctly. Leftists will never understand what it means to be an American.