Oregon passes tax increases on corporations and the wealthy..

[citizenzen]

That's what the people like you who would have everyone believe. It is money we have promised, which we don't have...

Just like the money you didn't have when you bought your house. Yet it got paid. Amazing isn't it?

 

[GenSeneca]

GenSeca,
You said that you thought that Gandhi's methods were acceptable

I agreed with his use of non-violent protest.

he used force, the force of the people to push the British out of India, he nationalized their holdings and the people were given their land. He reversed the process of wealth accumulation that the British had instituted and gave back the money/wealth to the people. I think that's a reasonable action, don't you?

So now you want to push the rich people out of America and redistribute their land and wealth?

Tell me again, why don't you like Communism?

 

[citizenzen]

Tell me again, why don't you consider yourself a Communist?

Why don't you consider yourself a fascist?

You want to bring the rhetoric down to the mud and ooze?

Bring it.

 

[GenSeneca]

Well, that just makes sense. From DailyPaul.com...

US wealth distribution: 10% of US citizens own 70.9% of all US assets

Top 1% own 38.1%
Top 96-99% own 21.3%
Top 90-95% own 11.5%

And it gets much uglier as you proceed downward.

Bottom 40% of population has 0.2% of all wealth.​

You quoted your mom earlier in the thread. It seems she was fond of old sayings. Did she ever tell you this one: You can't get blood out of a turnip?

How many of those at the top are in bed with the government? How many of them get tax payer money through bailouts, subsidies and other forms of forced redistribution of wealth? You remember the forced redistribution of wealth... That's the policy you support but cannot defend.

 

[GenSeneca]

Just like the money you didn't have when you bought your house. Yet it got paid. Amazing isn't it?

Just like our deficits and debt right? According to you, we're going to have oodles of cash laying around to pay those debts when they come due despite the fact that we cannot even begin to repay the more paltry debts we current have.

 

[GenSeneca]

Why don't you consider yourself a fascist?

Because I'm a Capitalist. Fascism is a Collectivist ideology and I don't support the use of force to the violate the rights of some for the benefit of others. All Collectivist ideologies have that in common, Fascism, Communism, Socialism, they all use force to violate the rights of some for the benefit of others. (a position that you support but cannot defend)

You want to bring the rhetoric down to the mud and ooze?

You've already done that.

Bring it.

I already brought it, set it down on the table, walked away from it, and you still can't defend your positions.

 

[citizenzen]

I already brought it, set it down on the table, walked away from it, and you still can't defend your positions.

I'm sorry... how many wives walked away from you?

 

[GenSeneca]

I'm sorry... how many wives walked away from you?

Ad Hominems and fallacies are not part of a logical argument.

Did you want to at least try to defend one of your positions?

You say we can pay for the unfunded liabilities that total over 100 trillion, but you can't bring yourself to explain how.... We aren't paying for the 1.5 trillion yearly deficit much less the 14 trillion dollar debt we currently owe. Your defense? Blank out.

You agree with the forced redistribution of wealth. Perhaps you can tell everyone why using force to violate the rights of some for the benefit of others is moral, just and ethical? Blank out.

 

[citizenzen]

Ad Hominems and fallacies are not part of a logical argument.

Neither are ignore lists... but I have the feeling that putting you on mine will make my stay here much more pleasant.

Peace you cranky, lonely, old man.

 

[citizenzen]

Aaahhh... much better.

 

[citizenzen]

"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war."

Abraham Lincoln,
Second Inaugural Address

Washington, D.C.
March 4, 1865

 

[GenSeneca]

"One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war."

Abraham Lincoln,
Second Inaugural Address

Washington, D.C.
March 4, 1865

Which of his positions do you think he was trying to defend with this post?

Zen says we can pay for the unfunded liabilities that total over 100 trillion, but he can't bring himself to explain how.... We aren't paying for the 1.5 trillion yearly deficit much less the 14 trillion dollar debt we currently owe.

Zen agrees with the forced redistribution of wealth. Perhaps he can tell everyone why using force to violate the rights of some for the benefit of others is moral, just and ethical.

Or could his post have been a Red Herring?

Red Herring: presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question.

 

[citizenzen]

Gotta love the ignore function.

It makes GenSen so much more personable... almost human.

 

[GenSeneca]

It's worth 10 minutes of your time.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

How does that make it something other than a redistribution of wealth?

If I pay into it and I get money out of it, how is that redistribution? Some people don't pay in and they get benefits too, mostly crippled people or really sick ones, you got a problem with that? What would you do with them?

Ask some of the Veterans here who have come from a poor family, or those who have relatives who have served, or are currently serving, in the military if they share your visceral hatred for our armed forces.

You really miss the point sometimes. I have great empathy for the soldiers who lives are wasted in stupid wars, and I have visceral hatred for the military mentality that spends so much on weapons research and empire building.

Did Micheal Moore tell you that? I'd like to see a source for that claim.

I'll see if I can run that down, I was just reading that... maybe it was the new Sun magazine article where they interviewed the economist.

About 50% of Americans don't pay federal taxes. The top 25% of taxpayers cover more than 86% of the total taxbill.

Why not, they have the money.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one's home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2009).

This second source gives slightly different numbers, but still carries the main message:
•The [richest 1% of Americans] now own more than the bottom 90% [of Americans].
•The top 10% [of Americans] own 71% of all private wealth.
•Over 86 percent of the value of all stocks and mutual funds, including pensions, was held by the top 10 percent of households. In 1998, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 47.7 percent of all stock.
•Bill Gates alone has as much wealth as the bottom 40% of U.S. households.
•In the 22 years between 1976 and 1998, the share of the nation's private wealth held by the top 1% nearly doubled, going from 22% to 38%.
•In 1982 the wealthiest 400 individuals in the "Forbes 400" owned $92 billion. By 2000 their wealth increased to over $1.2 trillion.
http://concentrationofwealth.blogspot.com/2004/03/facts-about-wealth-in-united-states.html

Here's another way to look at it: The distribution of wealth is much more unequal than the distribution of income, especially when focussing on the bottom 60% of all households. The bottom 60% of households possess only 4% of the nation's wealth while it earns 26.8% of all income.
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm
Is it any wonder that the bottom 60% of the population with only 4% of the nations wealth doesn't pay much taxes? The site directly above has some graphs that show "graphically" (intended double entendre) how the wealth is distributed.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/15/concentration-of-wealth-in-hands-of-rich/
According to Saez’s study, which Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman drew attention to at his New York Times blog, the top 10 percent of earners in America now receive nearly 50 percent of all the income earned in the United States, a higher percentage than they did during the 1920s.

By comparison, during most of the 1970s the top 10 percent earned around 33 percent of all the income earned in the United States.

The contrast is even starker for the super-rich. The top 0.01 percent of earners in the US are now taking home six percent of all the income, higher than the 1920s peak of five percent, and a whopping six-fold increase since the start of the Reagan administration, when the top 0.01 percent earned one percent of all the income.

Saez also broke the numbers down by administration, and found that while the wealthiest few saw their incomes rise as quickly during the Bush years as they did during the Clinton years, the same was not true for the rest of the population. So this isn't just a Republican/Democrat or Liberal/Conservative thing.