Thread: "Redistributing wealt from the rich is theft!"

Originally Posted by RedRepublic

-That statement could not be further from the truth.

Except it's true - if I stole your computer and sold it on the black market so I could donate the money to people in Haiti who make about $300 per year, that would still be theft.

The rich practice redistribution of wealth every day, that means the fruits of your labor being redistributed into their pockets.

Yes it's called having a job, maybe you're unemployed sitting around collecting food stamps so it doesn't apply to you - so the fruits of our labor are being redistributed into your pockets.

When stealing people's contributions becomes institutionalized it does not cease to be theft.

Giving back these stolen contributions is not theft.

Sell all your clothes and give the money back to those poor little children in Chinese sweatshops who made them for you.

Originally Posted by Taxpayer

Where we may diverge is in the assumption that a man's efforts or what he trades for them are assets of the nation.

Your sig block proves you refuse to know the difference between what a man's efforts produce and what the community's effort produces and shovels into his pockets.

But what I make with my life... I don't agree the nation has a right to seize it to offset the bad luck or bad choices of my neighbor. Even upon my death.

Your sig block proves you know very well that what you MAKE with your life is not the issue. What you are TAKING FROM OTHERS is the issue. Your sig block just proves that you refuse to address that issue.

Originally Posted by SpaceCricket79

Yes it's called having a job,

Garbage. The rich take from the productive in their sleep, without having jobs, or producing, or contributing anything whatever.

Originally Posted by Roy L

Garbage. The rich take from the productive in their sleep, without having jobs, or producing, or contributing anything whatever.

Totally false, the majority of wealthy people worked their butts of to get where they are . Sure some people are just born rich and do nothing, or are talentless overpaid celebrites, but they're in the minority. The rich are the real working class.

Those who hate the rich sure love reaping the rewards of the wealthy's hard work, such as anyone who owns a Windows computer - reaping the rewards of Bill Gates' hard work so they can (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) online about how useless the rich are (all the while ignoring that Americans, even the lower class, are very rich compared to most of the 3rd world) - never gets old

Originally Posted by SpaceCricket79

Totally false, the majority of wealthy people worked their butts of to get where they are .

But they mostly "worked their butts off" to get something for nothing, as already proved.

Sure some people are just born rich and do nothing, or are talentless overpaid celebrites, but they're in the minority. The rich are the real working class.

Garbage. I know enough of them personally to know that they almost all got almost all of their wealth through privilege, manipulation, scams, government favors, etc., etc.

"Behind every great fortune there is a great crime." -- Balzac

Those who hate the rich sure love reaping the rewards of the wealthy's hard work, such as anyone who owns a Windows computer - reaping the rewards of Bill Gates' hard work so they can (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) online about how useless the rich are (all the while ignoring that Americans, even the lower class, are very rich compared to most of the 3rd world) - never gets old

You merely prove your ignorance. The Internet was created by government. Bill Gates only worked hard at rent seeking and eliminating competition, as the book, "Hard Drive" explains. The only reason we have ever heard of Bill Gates is that IBM's lawyers thought they would be vulnerable to anti-trust action if they owned the operating system of their PC, so they out-sourced it. Bill Gates is a multi-billionaire because there had to be a standard, and IBM picked MS-DOS.

Originally Posted by Roy L

Your sig block proves you refuse to know the difference between what a man's efforts produce and what the community's effort produces and shovels into his pockets.

Pure lunacy - and you may merit the ignore feature. If someone acquires wealth and then puts it at risk to create mechanisms which potentially can create more wealth, he may in that endeavor hire people for specific labor roles which are worth a specific amount of money, and no more. The production said employee creates pays for overhead; that employee's compensation, and profit for the original investor.

That profit serves as the motivation to place the capital at risk with which to begin. I'll say it right now: if you refuse to understand this, you're going on ignore. I don't need to fill my life with more stupidity than I run into by accident; no sense doing it on purpose.

Your sig block proves you know very well that what you MAKE with your life is not the issue. What you are TAKING FROM OTHERS is the issue. Your sig block just proves that you refuse to address that issue.

You hate profit, or actually have such a big head that you think you can decide for everyone what "fair" is.

Originally Posted by Roy L

But they mostly "worked their butts off" to get something for nothing, as already proved.

Garbage. I know enough of them personally to know that they almost all got almost all of their wealth through privilege, manipulation, scams, government favors, etc., etc.

"Behind every great fortune there is a great crime." -- Balzac

You merely prove your ignorance. The Internet was created by government. Bill Gates only worked hard at rent seeking and eliminating competition, as the book, "Hard Drive" explains. The only reason we have ever heard of Bill Gates is that IBM's lawyers thought they would be vulnerable to anti-trust action if they owned the operating system of their PC, so they out-sourced it. Bill Gates is a multi-billionaire because there had to be a standard, and IBM picked MS-DOS.

How stupid. Bill Gates is a billionaire because he refined MS-DOS and created Windows.

Originally Posted by clarkatticus

Note that I underlined the word "earned". This is the oft ignored point in capitalistic conversations. Leaving vast assets to one's children is feudal not capitalistic. Capitalism is survival of the fittest, the smartest, the hardest worker who earns their money. Not taxing capital gains is unfair, no good argument says it is good for the economy and thus the nation, which, by the way is the only good reason capitalism exists, because it benefits the society that practices it however imperfect.

Capitalism exists for a variety of reasons, I'd suggest the primary reason it occurs is the natural belief that a man can and should be able to own property. At it's core, that's all capitalism is -- it's the economic system that results when we acknowledge a man's right to possess things and use what he owns for commerce.

Folks may disagree with what it means to own something. Ownership seems to imply the right to consume or dispose of something as one would see fit. Sure there's limitations, where those acts are violent or dangerous. You can't dispose of TNT in town square, but no one questions your ownership of it. If you have a stack of eggs, no one questions your right eat them, save them, or destroy them. No one complains when you choose to make breakfast with them for your children and not necessarily the children of your neighbor.

But something happens when that stack of eggs get's bigger. Folks desire for those eggs grows as well. For no other reasons than that desire, people seem to feel your right to own them is diminished. That eating them yourself is no longer reasonable, that destroying them is criminal, that saving them is hording. And when you give them to your children they complain that those children didn't earn the breakfast you're giving them -- while forgetting you did.

Originally Posted by Subdermal

How stupid. Bill Gates is a billionaire because he refined MS-DOS and created Windows.

Now that is a really stupid claim. Gates did not create Windows, a large number of ordinary programmers did. Gates's contribution consisted largely of going around to all those other programmers and chanting, "Mac on PC! Mac on PC!" Refining MS-DOS made him a billionaire? You mean, the refined MS-DOS that only allowed addressing of 640K of memory? That refined MS-DOS?

Don't think so...

An individuals labor is the individuals and not someone elses labor. If someone forces you to work without pay, it is considered to be slavery. If someone takes your property without compensation it is considered theft.

Throughout history, some people are better at some things than others, so found they could trade labor. That eventually becomes too difficult so a means of exchanging labor through some intermediary means was invented, basically money; therefore, money represents your labor. Labor can be exchanged in the form of money to purchase things the individual cannot make themselves, furniture for instance. The compensation for the effort to do this is called profit.

Now, if someone comes in and steals your furniture (property), they are in effect, forcing you to work for free (slavery) because now they have forced you to work for them without compensation.

Society bands together to do those larger things an individual could do with enough time and/or money but most people do not have enough time and/or money so band together into what is called a government to build those things that society wants but cannot build individually. This is considered to be voluntary and the reason we have taxes.

Now, as an individual, I cannot take property from my neighbor and give to those I think are more worthy. That is called theft. That would mean I am forcing slavery on my neighbor. I have taken his labor without compensation. Government by the people are bound by the same laws as individuals since it is only a group of people banding together to get those larger things done.

Progressives decided that government of the people was not good enough and a few elite could guide government better than the masses. Progressives brought social engineering into the government. Government became rogue when the elites decided that government could break the laws that bind individuals. Elites decided it would be OK to take from your neighbor and give to those it decided was more worthy breaking a law that applies to individuals. This comes in several forms from redistribution of wealth to crony capitalism.

So in effect, government has turned back to slavery, or since it is not complete slavery it is what I call fractional slavery taking your labor without compensation.