Curiouser and Curiouser! Cried Alice

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The concept of an Elite was described by George Orwell in his book 1984: his portrayal was so graphic it seems our current Socialists borrow as heavily from Orwell as they do from Alynsky. Orwell condemned and ridiculed the Elite: Alynsky described how to use the concept to achieve power and confuse the opposition. Both the authors have been extremely useful in defining the mission for the Elite wannabe, the Rules for Radicals is an effective guide that capitalizes on the absurdity that is the image of the Elite: an image that is still useful in the audacity of the present administration’s presentation of its Socialism and its confusing claims of patriotism enmeshed with the formation of international socialism and the loss of our national identity. Keys to this enigma are scattered throughout the writings of Orwell and if we apply them to our present situation with the Obama Administration, it is possible to almost see through the smoke and mirrors and imagine we are not being enticed down the Rabbit Hole into the abyss of Socialism.

Unfortunately, the story of Alice falling through the Rabbit Hole into the abyss is a seductive story, as a boy I read the story over and over. The imagery was almost a type of eroticism that I didn’t understand, but it drew me into the web of Alice, in much the same manner that the gullible and naive are drawn into the web of Socialism.

To accept Socialism, you must belling to accept the tenet of Socialism stating that you must be willing to accept the concept of Elites. These are people who are preordained by some mystical power to rule over you and your life, they will direct and guide you from the cradle to the grave. If you can’t accept this, maybe you really aren’t a Socialist. To really understand Socialism and the concept of Elitism from outside the perimeter of collective thought, it is helpful to read Orwell and Carrol.

This quote is from Chapter 1, of Animal Farm.

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.

Of course animals don’t really produce, but the reference here is directed toward the Elite, who most often has never produced anything in this life, yet is qualified and preordained to direct those who actually produce.

The following quote ridicules the Elite, who often has an Ivy League education, yet possesses a limited intelligence. Animal Farm, Chapter 9.

He intended, he said, to devote the rest of his life to learning the remaining twenty-two letters of the alphabet.

Its easy to apply this dedication to any number of appointments within the Obama Administration.

The Elites of the Obama Administration and Elites of the world resort to the following explanation to rationalize why we the common citizen should reduce our “carbon footprint” while they, Obama, Pelosi, Gore, and others fly around in large private jets. Animal Farm, Chapter 10.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

The true Marxist is an atheist; although, politicians who are atheists, rarely admit their belief or lack of belief. The committed Marxist, and there is rarely any other kind, is described by George in Down and Out In Paris, Chapter 30.

He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike him).

Of course Orwell exposes the typical Marxist Atheist as a fraud, for how do you personally dislike someone, whom you don’t believe exists.

When Mechelle Obama announced that her husband was going to rewrite history, the heartbeat of American history skipped several beats; however, Orwell had already laid out the principles of control for the aspiring Socialists, in 1984.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

Everyone remembers when our President assumed his Chicago Union Business Agent tough guy persona and said he was going to keep his boot in the throat of British Petroleum to make sure this problem was fixed; unfortunately, his bravado was laughable to all those but the most gullible; yet the phrase was lifted from 1984.

If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot stamping a human face forever.

Although the image of Obama being assertive is humorous, but vindictive and cowardly and paying someone else to do the stamping isn’t hard to visualize.

The bureau for propaganda is brought out in the open by the most blatant stupidity by Nancy Pelosi, “To find out what is in the bill we have to pass it first” still the public and the opposition allows her semi-lucid ramblings to lead our largest legislative body. Her audacity is described in 1984, not that I think she could read or understand the book, but someone probably gave her the line and she is so dim witted she didn’t see the ambiguity.

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.

She has become the epitome of double think, so described in 1984.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Of course no one believes Obama has written his teleprompter scripts, judging from his performance at speaking during technical breakdowns; yet we all recognize the ability of his speech writers. However, this was described by Orwell in Politics And The English Language.

In our time, political speech and writing is largely in defense of the indefensible.

Now that we wonder how the literate among us could have fallen for such a scam artist, a man with no documentation except for associations with those who hate our country, we once again can look to Orwell for clues to our own infallibility in Riding Down From Bangor.

The books one reads in childhood, and perhaps most of all the bad and the good bad books, create in one’s mind a sort of false map of the world, a series of fabulous countries into which one can retreat at odd moments throughout the rest of life, and in some can even survive a visit to the real countries which they are supposed to represent.

Thus we are left with why? I suspect for many of the literate, it was a sojourn to that most powerful of nations, the imagination, coupled with the willingness to believe in the goodness of the human spirit. That is why we were able to be duped by the great pretender. A Healthy reading of Alice surely gave Orwell a grip on the absurdity of Socialism and its appeal to the feeble minded. From Chapter 7, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, by Lewis Carrol.

“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

“I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.”

“You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was my escape as a child, but I was able to separate the imagination from reality as an adult.

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I do not remember Alice looking like that when I was a kid! Maybe I am just getting too old to remember?

Randy, I’ve always had a vivid imagination. It may be all I have left, when Obama is done Redistributing the Wealth.

I wonder how most American’s feel about the current distribution of wealth in the United States when presented with the actual data, rather than Wealth Redistribution Hysteria?

http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20ariely%20in%20press.pdf

Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of “regular” Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current distribution of wealth in the United States and to “build a better America” by constructing distributions with their ideal level of inequality. First, respondents dramatically underestimated the current level of wealth inequality. Second, respondents constructed ideal wealth distributions that were far more equitable than even their erroneously low estimates of the actual distribution. Most important from a policy perspective, we observed a surprising level of consensus: All demographic groups – even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy – desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo.

Americans Prefer Sweden
For the first task, we created three unlabeled pie charts of wealth distributions, one of which depicted a perfectly equal distribution of wealth. Unbeknownst to respondents, a second distribution reflected the wealth distribution in the United States; in order to create a distribution with a level of inequality that clearly fell in between these two charts, we constructed a third pie chart from the income distribution of Sweden…. with some 92% of Americans preferring the Sweden distribution to the United States. In addition, this overwhelming preference for the Sweden distribution over the United States distribution was robust across gender (Females: 92.7%; Males: 90.6%), preferred candidate in the 2004 election (Bush Voters: 90.2%; Kerry Voters: 93.5%) and income (less than $50,000: 92.1%; $50,001-100,000: 91.7%; more than $100,000: 89.1%).

Shame on Tom! You should be banned from posting here. Relying on data, indeed. You must not look at the numbers, sir, you must follow your heart!
And in your heart you know Zippy is right. We must spread the wealth around. Except for the wealth of the elites, that is. Their wealth is … well … different.

As for Alice: you all need to go talk to a good math historian. Alice is a critique of the new math afflicting the study of mathematics in Dodgson’s time. One must consider Wonderland in the context about foundations, the yet-to-be published Russell’s Antimony, and the absolute failure of Frege. And then there is the question of Euclid’s fifth postulate, and the startling revelations of Riemann about elliptic and hyperbolic geometries.
Still far in the future was Godel and formal undecidability.
Y’all can read Alice any way you want; the most informative is in the context of mathematics itself. Do not forget that Dodgson was a very good logician.

Animal Farm and 1984 are normative for today’s dialogue. In that I totally agree.
For profound political philosophy, I refer you to Robert Anson Heinlein. Yes, the dude who wrote science fiction. He boiled it all down to “who decides?”
Either you decide for yourself (we call this liberty) or some self-appointed elite decides for you (we call this statism).
Facts are stubborn things. Liberty produces benefits for all. Statism spreads the misery around (see Cuba) (see Zimbabwe) (see Chad) (see Somalia) sorry, got carried away.
So… do we get to decide anymore?

W.W. Norton and Company republished the old Annotated Alice with new notes on the mathematical and poetry parodies alongside the texts of both books.

I had read the book in the 1960’s buy it was a paperback and was trashed years ago.
So, when I saw this new edition (more notes) in hardback I bought it.

What a wonderful version it is.

Eye-opening.

“….do we get to decide anymore?”

I think decisions made in November will have the authors of the study provided by Tom wondering where they went wrong. Proof is in the pudding, we’ve had a government full of wealth redistributers in power for almost two years and “the people” appear to be rebelling. 😉

As for Sweden, they just re-elected…..a conservative prime minister, guess the Swedes rebelled against their slice in the “pie chart”:

FOR decades, conservatives have played an important role in Swedish politics: they are there to be defeated.

They advocate lower taxes and are duly accused of planning savage cuts. So the voters traditionally stick with the Social Democrats who have held power for seven of the past eight decades.

Every other decade Swedish conservatives come on for some light entertainment before being booted out after a term. Never in modern Swedish history has a conservative prime minister been spared this fate. Until now.

This week Fredrik Reinfeldt, a bald and deeply dull 45-year-old who communicates with British Prime Minister David Cameron by text message, is celebrating the first re-election in history of his party, the Moderaterna, although his coalition narrowly lost its absolute majority of seats.

He is also celebrating the success of an extraordinary experiment. His response to the recession was to cut taxes, a move his critics said the country could not afford.

The European Commission warned him it would end in tears. But instead the lower taxes were a spur to growth and Sweden now has the fastest growing economy in the Western world.

When elected four years ago leading a four-party coalition, Reinfeldt had a striking slogan. “We are the new workers’ party,” he said, meaning he would cut taxes for those in employment, but not for those on benefits.

When faced with protests about how the poorest would be paying a higher marginal tax rate, he appealed to voters’ innate sense of fairness and resentment at the high level of welfare dependency. At every stage, his ministers would explain the basics of low-tax economics. Cut tax on wages and increase the incentive to work. “This will increase employment,” Reinfeldt said. “Permanently.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/swede-smell-of-success/story-e6frg6so-1225928929714

Wealth Redistribution sounds innocent enough: it has seduced millions, not just in North America, but all over the world. Naturally, nearly everyone wants more, whether we are speaking of those
trapped in poverty or the union worker who feels his position should guarantee him everything for as long as he is alive or the fairly affluent white collar worker who figures if he just made another hundred thousand he could buy the house he needs or the fancy car he wants. They are all the same in one respect, they want more.

The person with inherited wealth feels guilt because everyone else who works so hard has so much less. This is usually defined as a Liberal, of course they consider themselves among the Elite or those that are given responsibility of directing and or governing everyone else because f their preordained position of superiority, besides if they weren’t special, they would have nothing else. I include Hollywood celebrities, entertainers, and others who are well paid for talents of dubious value, a fact that they are aware of, but refuse to admit to themselves.

This survey was used to manipulate, through inductive reasoning or creating a set statistics to arrive at a desired position, well understood facts of human nature; the same concept deployed by the Bolsheviks and Mao to achieve control and power. In each case, the same promise of Redistribution of Wealth was made to induce the citizenry to join and support their cause: almost none had any idea of the suffering that was to befall their people from the simple human desire of wanting more and living like someone else.

There are some facts that are forgotten during this supposed transition from Free Market to Socialist society. First and foremost, people who drive the economy, the small capitalist who creates products and hires workers are leaving the country and moving their assets off shore. They see no reason to share their fortunes achieved from working 60 and 70 hour work weeks and investing huge amounts of capital is somehow the same as working 40 hours a week with everything provided. These assets both human and economic are leaving as these words are being printed. There are several countries that are welcoming their expertise and money with open arms and will give them a free rein to create jobs and wealth in a new country.

Some have left and millions more are sitting ready to flee, at the first sign of the implementation of a Socialist state. (I work a business that exposes me to wealthy people in the Free Market) So the Socialist Dystopia that is dreamed upon the ash heap of a once Free Market will not be the gravy train envisioned by the dupes of Socialism. Nor will those entrepreneurs who once were willing to risk all in a gamble hat created not only wealth and products, but jobs as well, be willing to risk their now marginalized capital in new business ventures. Thus the machinery begins to wind down, like it is doing now. Why gamble your wealth when the country is in a Socialist tailspin that might auger right into the earth and end up being a useless pile of rubble.

Socialism robs initiative and the vigor from an economy, despite what the socialist Elites tel you, there is nothing to drive an economy run by sycophants of Elites, who have never created wealth or products. Thus once the wealth runs out the economy dies.

Specific to wealth redistribution, which I assume happens through taxation, you would have a hard time making a mathematical argument that large amounts of wealth are being transferred downward under Obama. It doesn’t add up. Not only is the wealth distribution trend heading upward, so is the income distribution trend. The top 0.1% of earners are earning four times as much a share of the total U.S. income each year than they did thirty years ago. I have a hard time shedding a tear for them. Since their wealth and income are both trending upward, whether or not Obama can take an extra 5% taxes from top US earners will have a negligible effect on wealth distribution. This is pretty simple mathematics. All the socialist boiler plate and hysteria are just cover fire for the super-rich, the true “Elite”, who are too busy sailing mega-yachts around the Mediterranean to bother posting their distaste with taxation on the internet. They, of course, control the country, so any impassioned defense on their behalf renders one their puppet. Congratulations.

Some would argue that the United States, its markets and infrastructure, has more than a little to do with the accumulation of wealth, and therefore tax revenues are well earned. There are many arguments against progressive taxation or higher taxation in general or ‘large government’ that don’t rely on the outright false claim that Obama can somehow radically redistribute wealth in four years (now two). I suggest you stick with those.

Yahoo!

And all the keys were there
disguised by the March Hare
It turns to a bright fun day.
The wit is in what they say.

“Everything’s got a moral
if only you can find it”

“No, no!” said the Queen
“Sentence first – verdict afterwards.”

“Reeling and Writhing, of course
to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied;
“and then the different branches of arithmetic- Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.

“If it were so, it might be;
and if it were so, it would be;
but as it isn’t, it ain’t.
That’s logic.

Whew, some heavy comparisons. It indeed feels like we have entered a strange new world. To add to that strangeness, on FOX NEWS website, I came acrosss a link today that is even stranger and had me floored. What happened to our president? Did someone make a clone of him, only this time made him stronger. He actually condemmed the Iranian president for his comments today. Is he about to become a Republican? Did the Mad Hatter work his madness on him. What happened to our president. GASP!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/24/obama-ahmadinejads-sept-statements-hateful/

Also, our Queen (Mrs. Obama) presents visiting dignitaries with an assortment of pickled vegetables from her garden. I wonder who got the OKRA.

http://toddstarnes.com/2010/09/mrs-obama-gives-leaders-picked-okra/

Yep. Wealth redistribution has been going on for a long time in the United States. That process continues, despite the the current recession.

What those who advocate the scaling back and eventual elimination of progressive social programs always fail to mention is that it has been the redistribution of wealth upward.

The note following the wealth distribution graph at the bottom of the document Tom linked to up in post #3 is very telling, and bears some thought:

Note: Because of their small percentage share of total wealth, both the “4th 20%” value (0.2%) and the “Bottom 20%” value (0.1%) are not visible in the Actual distribution.

The bottom 40% of the population possess less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the nation’s total wealth. The middle 20% aren’t doing much better, and are losing ground fast. If we dispense with our progressive social programs, we’ll be throwing 60% of the U.S. population to the wolves. Or maybe turning them into wolves.

How good are the gates of our gated communities?

Greg and the left seems to think that there is a finite amount of wealth and it needs to be distributed equally. They also believe that all wealth is at the expense of others. There must always be a victim with lefties. Entrepreneurs in this country generated wealth. They didn’t do it on the backs of others, but they did it with ideas that were better than ideas from the rest of the world. That happened because the government of this country encouraged free thought and allowed for rewarding those who could take good ideas and make them work.

I grew up on a small farm in PA. There were times when my dad poached rabbits and deer to feed the 5 kids. We were lucky to give $.50 at church on Sunday. One thing we had that others in our income bracket was guts and a work ethic to do something with our lives. All 5 kids worked their way through college. All of us did work many others would not do. None of us expected a free lunch from the government. We got off our butts and worked for what we have. All of us are very successful. Some people risk capitol. I took risky jobs that paid well. I saved my money and invested wisely. Now, I am penalized by our government for working hard all of my life to support others who were unwilling. All of us had equal choices in this country. Because others failed to make the right or any other choice but poverty, We are expected to pay for their mistakes.

The people who are increasing their wealth are people who took risks. They are not getting wealthy on wages. They are getting wealthy on investments. They are people who sacrificed in the short term to find gratification in the future. If the government continues to take from the most wealthy to give to the less wealthy, what incentive will there ever be for anyone to work? When the wealthy move their wealth and money generating companies off shore, where will this country be then? Do you think the world will feed our people?

@ Greg… In my neck of the woods Charity is Voluntary, Not Mandatory and We shoot wolves regularly. I pay my share of taxes as well but I can’t share your sense of generosity for folks that do not work 24/7 in my business. So, if you don’t mind, I do object to anyone redistributing my wealth.

We are all saved by the Democrats! The House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law also known as the Washington Comedy Club actually called Stephen Colbert as an expert on immigration. I expect that next week, Al Gore will be called on how he invented the internet, or Barney Frank on how to buy a house and get money back from the government.

Randy: if there was some rhyme or reason behind Colbert doing his base and tasteless routine and becoming a part of congressional history, it might be bizarre enough to appear in Through The Looking Glass or Alice, but this was disgrace that stained the integrity of our government, as difficult as that might seem.

In the future are we to expect song and dance routines by Hollywood celebrities who hate our form of government and want a large audience to criticize, this Representative from California, who thought she would score some points with her Progressive Socialists back home for making a fool of herself and belittling the function of government should receive a formal reprimand and this half-assed shtick should never be allowed in government again. This has been a disgrace

Randy,

Your description of wealth creation makes it sound as if it happens in a vacuum with the government coming along later and grabbing a piece. You write that wealth creation, “happened because the government of this country encouraged free thought and allowed for rewarding those who could take good ideas and make them work.” The government also does things that benefit US companies that cost money. Furthermore, US companies need customers, and many rely on large volumes of customers, as opposed to being able to thrive on narrow, wealthy segments of the population. For example, four of the ten richest people in America are the children of the founder of Walmart. They don’t exactly conform to your profile of the risk taking entrepreneur. Walmart’s customers have incomes below the national average. It’s estimated that 1/5 of Walmart customers lack a bank account, so Walmart kindly offers check-cashing services in their stores. It’s an oversimplification to say that the government takes taxes from the rich and distributes then downward to the poor (doesn’t some of that money go to ‘good’ government spending, like National Defense?) but where do you think the money the poor do receive ends up? In a Treasury Bill, down payment on a Porsche, a vacation house on Martha’s Vineyard? It ends up back at the Walmarts of the world and back in the hands of the Waltons!

You write, ” If the government continues to take from the most wealthy to give to the less wealthy, what incentive will there ever be for anyone to work?”. I’m not sure I buy that. No one is getting rich off of government assistance. i know people out of work on unemployment and they’re all dying to get back to work for a multitude of reasons, but mainly because it’s not enough money to live on. Likewise, no one is getting poor because of taxation. The top 1% that the Republicans are so desperate to protect by extending the Bush tax cuts are not going to be destitute if they expire. Are you seriously suggesting that that millionaires and billionaires will stop working if the government takes 5% more?

As I wrote above, you can have a great debate over what the correct and fair tax rates should be, but that debate can’t happen when two dishonest presumptions are always at the forefront of some peoples’ arguments: 1) the fear mongering and hysteria that attends “wealth redistribution” downward, which has no data to support it and which is actually in contrast to all known trends on wealth and income distribution; and 2) that the government hasn’t ‘earned’ or has ‘no right’ to tax revenues from the wealthy, as if the wealthy in the United States don’t benefit from infrastructure, rule and law, national defense, education (of both potential employees and customers), US-funded technology and medical breakthroughs, a ‘wired’ population (ask Mark Zukerberg how he feels about 75% of North American homes having internet access), a stable society of consumers with money to spend.

Tom: As I wrote above, you can have a great debate over what the correct and fair tax rates should be, but that debate can’t happen when two dishonest presumptions are always at the forefront of some peoples’ arguments: 1) the fear mongering and hysteria that attends “wealth redistribution” downward, which has no data to support it and which is actually in contrast to all known trends on wealth and income distribution;

Actually, Tom, there is ample data to raise protest your comment above. Sylvia Nasar, NYTs former economic columnist had an article in 1992, after stumbling across the research by the McKinsey Global Institute comparing developed nation’s economies. Prior to their research, it was an erroneous assumption that the US economy model had been surpassed by the German and Japanese models. However the way the GDP was analyzed created a skewed version. The book written by William Lewis, founding director of McKinsey Global Institute, is called The Power of Productivity. There’s a good synopsis on the basis of their research and the book’s intent by the author here.

While the intent was to examine what makes rich countries rich, and poor countries poor, what was most surprising is that it showed the US model, which has been operating on your dreaded trickle down for decades for the most part, as superior when it comes to GDP measured by individual productivity.

Our economic downfall is mostly related to an undisciplined and outrageous credit spending of disposable income. In short, because we have become a society of “stuff”, and credit was readily available, people have overmortgaged themselves. This is not the fault of a system, but of the economic education and discipline of current generations. The WWII generation did not suffer from this because they were, by nature of their events, more frugal and less inclined to be “he who dies with the most toys”.

McKinsey put on a most interesting study last year on whether US consumer debt would cripple the economic recovery. I believe you confuse the economic model with the behavior of the consumers who benefit from that model.

GREG #11 More gated communities,more people in prisons. What does that say?

” The free society that does not care for the many who are poor cannot protect the few who are rich” John F. Kennedy

Tom,
If the government is going to take 50% of the income from a new business, why would any of the Walmart Heirs bother to start a new business? Or at least a new business in the US? (By the way, Old Sam busted his but with a new idea that is still working. Should we take 50% of his money because he worked hard and was successful while others sat on their butts?

You are not concerned that with 47% of the people paying no tax? What if they kept voting for higher taxes on those who pay taxes? Have you ever worked for a poor employer? If you did, he likely missed payrolls and didn’t pay very well. No one eversaid that the poor are getting rich from wealth redistribution. They have reached a position where they would rather sit home, watch their color TV, cook TV dinners in their microwave oven and drink light beer rather than contribute to society. Since Johnson’s War on Poverty, there is a higher percentage of families in poverty than when he started the program.

I once heard a speaker say that if all of the wealth in the world was distributed equally amoung all of the people in the world, within 10 years, the situation would be nearly the same as before. He attributed this to the lack of effort. Those who had wealth would bust their butts to reacquire wealth again. Those who didn’t have wealth would squander it until they were back where they started.

Rich,
The difficulty is not protecting the rich, it is protecting the nonviolent from the violent. With the acceptance of postmodern thought, no individual is responsible for his actions. Society is responsible for creating the behavior in these violent individuals. So, the justice system releases violent criminals back into the community with just a slap on the wrist. Rich people live in gated communities. other nonviolent people install reinforced doors and pack firearms for protections (in states that allow the use of firearms as protection).

Randy, nice comment.

Reminded me of this disputer set of quotes:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

Either:

Alexander Tytler
Alexander Tyler
Arnold Toynbee
Lord Thomas Macaulay
Alexis de Tocqueville

or….?

There are natural laws most likely developed by our Creator. When we choose to ignore them or subvert them, we end up paying a penalty. I think is was Fritjof Capra who philosophized that all biological systems correct themselves if left alone. The oil (organic) that escaped into the Gulf of Mexico will be broken down by other biological organisms. Trying to control the amount of life giving carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by spending trillions of dollars will make no difference. Let it alone and the increased plant growth will maintain the system.

My observations show that when society tries to artificially promote a section of that society, there are unintended consequences. Providing assistance to unwed mothers generated more unwed mothers. Making no one at fault for divorce created more single parents. Both unwed mothers and no fault divorce placed more kids in poverty. Instead of allowing the system to punish those who strayed from system norms, society interfered.

Randy, i understand your point about wanting to keep what you’ve worked hard for, but it seems you still won’t acknowledge that you’re getting something in return. Would you prefer no taxation, no government at all? All services provided by the government could be private businesses. If there’s a fire at your house, maybe three fire companies show up and bid on services and you can select based on price and reputation. Or maybe you live 30 miles outside of town, so no one shows up because there’s no profit in it. You could test your own drinking water for contamination, since there’s no EPA. If DOW chemical moves next store, there’s always bottled water. A car crash leaves two orphans behind, they better hope their parents left enough behind to pay for an orphage. Of course they can work now, since there’s no agency saying otherwise. And when someone returns from Iraq with shrapnel in his head, he can hope that there’s enough charity to pay for his years of rehabilitation and care, because there’s no longer government services for veterans. Of course, that’s a trick example, because there is no armed forces anymore, although paid militias will find lots of business.

Silly, I know, but to me no sillier than some of the dire things I read about the results of Obama’s tax plan. My point is that some amount of government is a necessary evil. For every service you find necessary, that’s more money out of your pocket. Reasonable people can disagree on the size of government, without resulting to sham calls of “Socialism” and “Wealth Redistribution”. You would need a very fine comb indeed to tease out the differences in government size and spending between GWD and Obama. We should all be more worried about the fact that the huge money interest and lobbies have wound their way into both parties and every level of government. Even the Supreme Court is protecting the rights of corporations to buy off politicians and wrapping it in the constitution and “Originalism”. It’s a choice of the lesser of two evils. As a person who is apparently wealthy, perhaps it makes sense for you to side with the party most obviously beholden to Wall Street, deregulation and limited government oversight. At the same time, it makes sense for others of more limited means to vote for more oversight and regulation when their retirement savings and pensions are being gambled for huge bonuses with no downside for those making the money. Of course Wall Street isn’t going to come out sand say “vote for us so that we can continue on business as usual”. They’re smart enough to align themselves with social agendas that are cost free to them. The moneyed elite don’t care WHY you vote for them, as long as you do so, whether it be religious zeal, prayer in the classroom, homophobia, Islamaphobia, or (most deliciously ironic of all) “anti-elitism”. And someone opposed to those selling points could likewise be well incented and logical to vote against Republicans without being called a “socialist” or “un-American”.

@ Randy, #18:

“If the government is going to take 50% of the income from a new business, why would any of the Walmart Heirs bother to start a new business?”

How concerned should we be? Their mega-wealth-building scheme has put countless small local businesses out of business; it has also flooded America with cheap foreign-made goods that have cost countless American workers their factories and jobs.

The wealthiest class of our society gets too much credit for the nation’s overall prosperity, in my humble opinion. Most of the business of the nation isn’t conducted by enterprises the size of Microsoft or Walmart. The enterprising guy working his tail off running a hot dog stand is an entrepreneur. So were the retail store owners that have vanished since Walmart showed up.

Maybe we should be showing more respect for the lower-level capitalists and entrepreneurs than for those who become so big they can game the system.

Maybe the little guys just starting out should be getting the most tax breaks, while those who have already amassed enormous fortunes should be taxed at higher rates. Enormous amassed wealth, after all, gives one increased power and a decided competitive advantage.

We already favor the power of money over the power of work. Why, for instance, do we tax wages and self-employment earnings at significantly higher rates than investment income? In what sense is that fair?

Mata,

Quickly, before I take this all in, I don’t disagree that the US model is superior for producing gross returns. My issue was with the idea that wealth redistribution is a downward trend and not upward. I’m not arguing about how big the pie is, but how big the slices are. Do you think there becomes a point where extreme wealth consolidation at the top is not a good thing for the country as a whole?

Tom,
You missed the whole point of previous posts. No one wants to get rid of all government, We do not want federal government involved in local government. That is why the Constitution uses language like the government will not…. instead of the government will. I want to make the decision on how many government services I get. I do not want a government who provides services I do not want.

Those of us in our community have determined that we will have a volunteer fire department that may not respond as quickly as a manned fire department. We pay extra in our fire insurance premiums as a result. Each of us pays more IAW with the value we are insuring. We have a full time police man with some part time officers. Most of us know the police will not be able to respond in time to capture a home intruder. Most of the homeowners in our community handle home intruders ourselves. (I expect that there is likely 4-5 firearms per family.) We are happy with the services we get. We pay less than someone in Chicago.

We use to pay for educating children in our local schools before the federal government got involved. Now, we have lost control of their education unless we pay extra to send them to private school. This needs to change!

You need to see real poverty in the world. People in the real world that live in poverty live in cardboard boxes with a plastic roof. More well to do people live in concrete block houses with plastic windows. They walk to the village water pump or nearest stream for water. In the US, people are considered to live in poverty if they only have one color TV, a washer and dryer and one car in their house. As many as 45% of these people living in poverty actual own their home along with the bank. If we tax more affluent people so these people can get cable TV does that help anyone in society? If an unmarried woman gen get more assistance by having more children, does that help society?

The freedom of a people to make decisions and to suffer the consequences is what makes a society better.

@ Tom,

Three questions:

1) Ever run Your Own Business?

2) Ever have to meet a payroll, provide Health Insurance, produce a product and assume the risks involved, INRE a profit and loss accounting?

3) How many folks do You Employ directly/indirectly out of the proceeds of Your Own Business?

No “loaded questions” here Tom.

I can answer those questions honestly if You can.

Actually, Tom there is more wealth in our middle class than in most countries in the world. I think you will find that the middle class is essential for a successful country. Name a country without a middle class that is successful! The wealth you think is concentrated at the top employs the middle class and provides their wealth.

Greg, we have lower taxes on investment income to encourage investment, duh! Without investment there is no money for economic growth. The growth of Walmart changed the system. The butcher and the backer can not longer compete with a model that provides lower prices for the same items. Walmart and microsoft has created opportunities for other new businesses like computer specialists and small manufacturing firms. Not everything comes from China. If Walmart would not be selling it, those small stores you said were put out of business would be selling it.

OT2, ‘no’ to all three.

Randy, If you track back, you’ll see my main concern was pretty narrowly focused on what I considered to be untruths and misinformation. I don’t think most of what you’ve expressed in post 26 I would disagree with, particularly the value of hard work and not looking for a free ride. I’m glad you shared your story. We probably differ on how we define and characterize some of those that the government assists and our view of the super-rich, but not everything I imagine.

THE one that pollute the most are the foreigners from poor COUNTRYS,
I notice in observation in CANADA, because they being new in AMERICA, they don’t know and don’t care,about the land the water the pollution as a whole idea, as compare to
born citizens; YOU just have to observe their way of living, easy to spot much waste in it.

@ Tom, Allrighty then, Who do You consider to be “wealthy”. Where do you draw the line.

There is no substitute for practical hands on experience on things “economic”, things “regulatory”, things that are considered to be “fair”, what responsibility that “employers” have both under the Law and Morally. The “risks” that business folks take in managing funds, “fiscal prudence” and Rights vs Responsibilities. With the authority to make business decisions come responsibilities and obligations to both those who “regulate” and “tax” to the “taxed and regulated” That is accountability on how the taxes are spent and how regulation benefits both the business entities and the community.

I know these things and those whose experience is only in the academic world or in the Public Sector quite frankly know squat, ie: the Current Regime. The old Margaret Thatcher quote comes to mind about how socialism is pretty keen stuff until you run out of OPM, Other people’s Money.

If you have questions I can give you the Cliffs Notes version of Cattle Ranching in Montana 101, how three generations of Hombres, I am Gen 3, started out with 140 acres of ground and 40 cattle, made it through the Depression version 1.0 and where I am today in Depression version 2.0, with considerably more ground and around 1,800 head of Hereford Beef on the hoof. That must be managed 24/7 through any weather situation experienced at over 3,400 feet above sea level and on some rough ground, the East Side of the Rockies.

I assume the risk, employ directly over 30 hard working Americans, never missed a payroll or paid my taxes late. Redistribution of my wealth by The Parliament of Whores in DC, an economically illiterate POTUS and his merry band of fools for advisors that never worked a hard day in their lives is laughable to a point. That point is when some political hack tries to get his hands in my pocket for “Bread and Circus”. That is where I draw a line in the sand.

No offense Tom but money does not fall from trees in my world. It is earned and not given.

GREG: hi, YES but they are AMERICANS, and they pay a lot more on tax than you,
AND give jobs to AMERICANS, and sell product also from AMERICA,
and from companys that deal with CHINA to make some of their products but are from AMERICA,
WOULD you want to erase all the big ones from AMERICA, that is your party’s mentality.
dont wish on it. many have move out already, and look at the economy now. bye

OLD TROOPER: hi, I agree and nobody can say it better, hard work is the core of business for businesses owners, from when they decide it all the way up, and the job they have doubles and multiply as they grow; but let them not make one error, and they will pay more for it than their employees. bye

FUNNY, I’m looking at the MOVIE “the ANTS” and that GRASSHOPERS wants a free deal,
and he is aggressive on his demands, and he think that HE is the WON.

@ ilovebeeswarzone, Ms. Bees, with certain members of the FA crowd it is wise to speak softly but carry a big stick. Greg is no exception. He is part of the Progressive “Free Ice Cream” crew and the Robin Hood approach to economics that has utterly failed everywhere it was tried.

These economic illiterates quite simply amaze me. As the “environmentalist reactionaries” just about run every Industry out of the US or “regulated” them into bankruptcy and not a darn one of them has the sense to grasp a cause and effect relationship, they must be replaced over the next two years, voted out of power or dire consequences will result and the fate of the Republic, like that of the Roman Empire, will be in the dustbin of History.

OLD TROOPER 2: hope they see the light when the time come to show what they must do,
to correct the situation. bye

NOW THE ANTS have had it, and the GRASSHOPERS are being voted out by all the other insects of all sizes and shape.

THERE is a big party going in there, among all the insects, because THEY WON.
END of movie.