Living in California most of my life has given me the opportunity to witness liberalism first hand in some of the most tragic ways. High taxes, manipulative policies, special favors for illegal aliens–you name it, we’ve got it. Liberals have left no stone unturned in finding new ways to legislate, regulate, and utterly ruin the lives of the average citizen every time they come in contact with a government run entity.
You’d think I’d one day get used to this kind of ideology–but no! California liberals never cease to amaze me at how ready they are to take your money and spend it on foolish, fraud filled programs. Take Chad for instance (real name withheld for privacy concerns). Chad believes that middle class families should be paying for his life as a college student. Their money should be taken from them and redistributed to those who do not make as much, if any at all.
This is all well and good if you’re Chad the starving college student who never worked a 40 hour week in his life. However, the best way to respond to this liberal (Marxist) nonsense is to set up the scenario in terms that he can understand. What if Chad got an assignment from his liberal college professor, and he worked REALLY hard on it for weeks on end to get it done. And what if Chad turned in the assignment and got an A, but when the teacher handed it back he said, “Chad, I know you got an A on this assignment, but I don’t think that it’s fair to the other people that didn’t work as hard and got lower grades. I think we’re going to have spread your grade around and just have everyone get a C.”
How does redistribution feel now Chad? Not so good when you’re the one having the earnings from YOUR hard work taken from you, does it? The way I always look at this Marxist ideology is not via the myth of taking from the rich and giving to the poor, but by looking at redistribution of wealth as what it really is: theft.
WarriorWoman91 
Encouraging to see reasoned thought in one so young. I am encouraged and hopeful! Thx
Keep up the good fight!
This blog post is one big straw man argument that makes no sense. First of all, a college professor “redistributing” grades is not at all akin to tax distribution. Colleges professors make their students work no matter who they are. Second of all, conservatives may not like it but taxes are necessary; they build all the essential services that EVERYONE uses (that is why they are called PUBLIC services). The debate comes from a disagreement on who those taxes should be directed at. It makes more sense to direct a slightly more expensive tax towards someone with the means to pay (it is not much to ask of a wealthy person to give something back to the country that was so good to them). Social programs (like those of the ‘New Deal’) a give more equality of opportunity for people from less fortunate backgrounds. It’s called upward mobility and there are plenty of people who who work their asses off every day and do not have a lot of upward mobility.
Also, California is one of the best states in the US to start a business. Haven’t you ever hearddm of Silicon Valley?
Dylan Crabb, your argument makes no sense. Let’s look at it.
1. “Taxes are necessary; they build all the essential services that EVERYONE uses (that is why they are called PUBLIC services).”
Correct. For example, roads, bridges, police, fire department, & the military.
Home loans for people who cannot afford them are not essential, public services; neither are food stamps and health insurance.
2. “The debate comes from a disagreement on who[m] those taxes should be directed at.”
Wrong. The debate comes from a disagreement on raising taxes for welfare & entitlement programs, NOT on who should be paying more taxes per se.
3. “It makes more sense to direct a slightly more expensive tax towards someone with the means to pay (it is not much to ask of a wealthy person to give something back to the country that was so good to them).”
In 2005 under George W. Bush, 86% of all income taxes are already paid by 25% of the top income earners. The top 50% pay 97% of all income taxes.
Higher tax % of income does not equal higher tax revenue for gov. Exempli gratia, in 1980, when the top income tax rate was 70%, the richest 1% paid only 19% of all income taxes; now, with a top rate of 35%, they pay more than double that share. (WSJ)
4. “Social programs (like those of the ‘New Deal’) a give more equality of opportunity for people from less fortunate backgrounds. It’s called upward mobility and there are plenty of people who who work their asses off every day and do not have a lot of upward mobility.”
Wrong. Social programs do not give more equality of opportunity, they simply redistribute wealth to a level where those in running the government feel is ‘fair.’ In other words, ‘social’ programs give more equality of outcome, not opportunity. Upward mobility is where people move upward in the ‘social ranks,’ e.g. from the lower-middle class to the upper-middle class, without taking any money from the govenrment. A person who isn’t a government employee who has more in his/her pocket only because he receives money (or other forms of wealth) from the government has not ‘moved upward;’ he/she hasn’t moved at all – there is no change in his/her character, knowledge, ability, skills, or anything.
5. “Also, California is one of the best states in the US to start a business. Haven’t you ever hearddm of Silicon Valley?”
Wrong. Dylan, that’s where you make your mistake: you think that a country or a state becomes great only by virtue of who’s running the government and what its programs are. No, that isn’t why a country becomes great. A country becomes great because of her people. Silicon Valley is great not because of CA government, there isn’t one policy that is helping them. Silicon Valley is great because it is full of entrepreneurs, who are just ordinary Americans achieving extraordinary things, because they work hard, they have a strong desire to make the world a better place with their passion and areas of interest, they have a will to be rich without lying, stealing, cheating, or tolerating those who do.
Ask any business owner in the country 10 best states to start a business (not considering the beauty of nature), and California is not one of them.
Consider my comment here a ‘public service’ for the likes of you, Dylan Crabb, because WarriorWoman91 could have done the same thing, but she’d rather not waste her time on the low-information, logically-challenged type.
Your analogy between paying taxes and the ‘A’ Grade is poor. An argument from analogy only works if there aren’t relevant differences between the two things you are drawing an analogy between.
Your analogy makes many common and flawed assumptions, three of which are
1) that hard work directly equates to earning more money
2) that everyone has equal opportunity
3) that people who are poor or rich must deserve to be that way.
Obviously, these are all intimately related to each other.
Newsflash:
1) Its not even close to being as simple as ‘hard work = more money”.
A) Theres a ton of luck involved, where you were born, who your parents were, how rich they were, your genetics and the list goes on.
B) Many poor people work harder than many rich people. If someone earns more money, it does not necessarily mean they work harder or are a better person.Compare the people working multiple jobs for pennies while raising kids to someone born into wealth who received top notch education and inheritance and makes their money by collecting rent from investments or paying someone to move money around for them.
There are plenty of rich people whose jobs are much easier than poor peoples jobs yet they get payed more. Look at, for example, someone who is born with wonderful genetics and as such looks beautiful and earns money because of that e.g. a supermodel, or someone who makes tons of money for being an idiot on reality tv.
Life is not fair, you can work hard your whole life and get nothing, everything can be taken from you in a moment of misfortune, while someone else can become rich out of luck or even for being an idiot or immoral. (btw CEO = profession with most sociopaths, doing the right thing often doesn’t make the most money)
2) As previously alluded to, lots of rich people had opportunities poor people never had, plenty of rich people are rich through luck and plenty of poor people are poor through misfortune. Plenty of rich people had top notch education, great role models, tons of extra help.
Do we pick how much money our parents have? Where we are born? Which school we get to go to? Which role models we are presented with? Whether we have mental disorders like bipolar or depression? And the list goes on.
3) Do you think its fine that one person can have billions of dollars while billions of people are starving to death? Do you really think they deserve that and that all the starving people deserve to be starving? Do you think its fair? Do you think its a morally justifiable situation for one individual to have so much more than they could ever need while so many have nothing? What could anyone possibly have done to deserve that excess in the face of such global poverty?
Do you REALLY think we have an even playing field and that the people who work hard and are good people will end up with the most money? If so, you are incredibly deluded.
If you want to make things as fair as possible, while still keeping a capitalist incentive system by rewarding hard work, how do you do that? Well, one of the primary ways is by increasing equality of opportunity.
How do you increase equality of opportunity? Hmmm…. I wonder..
Could it be through taxes?
Issues about autonomy and moral responsibility, in other words, what people choose and what people deserve, are far more complicated than you seem to realise. Maybe if you want to talk about justice or ethics you should study some moral philosophy first.
For someone who needs so many words to make your points like you, Sigh, I’ll leave this reply. Sign, don’t worry, I’m not giving you any more analogy, since it seems that analogies only confuse you.
1) that hard work directly equates to earning more money
2) that everyone has equal opportunity
3) that people who are poor or rich must deserve to be that way.
1. You’re right that hard work does not equal earning more money. Hard work is essential, and it needs a strong desire to make the world a better place with one’s passion, the will to become rich without lying, cheating, stealing, or tolerating those who do, improving one’s character and knowledge, and more.
What is not needed to earn a lot of money, however, is luck. Luck does not exist; even if you want deny its non-existence, the best defition for it is the moment preparation and opportunity meets. For someone like you, Sigh, I expected better words than “luck.”
2. Everyone DOES have equal opportunity ANYWHERE he/she is free to do anything as long it does not infringe on other’s rights to do the same, as long as it isn’t lying, cheating, stealing, and murder.
“Where you were born, who your parents were, how rich they were, your genetics and the list goes on.” Most of the millionaires in America are not born with most of those things. Some come from broken families, not a very good looking, average intellect, and the list goes on.
Sure, all of those affect how wealthy a person is. But, they are not determining factors. The only determinant in how wealthy a person is, is him/herself.
Survey finds 86% of millionaires in America are self-made
Many are high school and college dropouts.
Okay, so you may be saying, those people have higher than average intelligence. Well, suppose that’s true, that only those with high IQs can move upward from poor to rich. That doesn’t mean the average IQ individuals can’t get ahead if they are born under the same conditions (middle class/poor family, etc). They can improve their character via various means (reading books, going to churches, self-examination, introspections, etc), they can continue to improve their knowledge. They can improve their knowledge by going to school and studying hard and get good grades. They then can get employed by a good employer, and no matter how evil they are any employer values hard working employees with good character, and will promote them, and if they have the money, even sponsor their higher education. They then can take out loans and so forth. That is just one scenario; there is tons of scenarios.
To be rich, good, hard-working people need to have the desire to do so. If the want to become rich as strongly as they want to breathe when they’re drowned, they will become rich. They will be successful. Then you start talking about greed, with all the negatie thigns associated with it, but really, when people think greed is terrible, they’re not thinking of the ‘greed’ itself: they’re thinking of all the mischief, lying, stealing, cheating, & all sorts of things people do to satisfy their ‘greed.’ Whenever there is a greedy person who always wants more and more money, yet he does so without doing any bad stuff, yet he strives to innovate; create products, things that will benefit as many people as possible and make the world a better place (offered at affordable prices), people never see that person as ‘greedy,’ because he’d be an asset to society.
Not all poor and all rich deserve to be that way, but all have reasons why they are so. Every poor American can also become rich if he wants it.
You seem to have forgotten that there are many more good people outside the government, and you, Sigh, make the false assumption that the government is the only group of people that is caring and compassionate. In reality, those who are desrious of power and government expansion are the most uncaring and uncompassionate people.
Raising taxes does not increase equality of opportunity; raising taxes for ‘social’ purposes redistributes wealth and increase equality of outcomes. Actually, raising taxes reduce equality of opportunity because the higher the taxes the less incentive people have to produce more, and also the higher the taxes the less people can buy with their own money, companies are finding themselves in tight, dire budget situations, sales are down as people buy less, people are laid off, people can’t get jobs, they can’t pay for higher education – it’s a mess. We need taxes, and we need them at the right amount. What is important is the government’s revenue, not the % of taxes. As I explained to Dylan Crabb, higher % of taxes do not equal higher tax revenue for govenrment. If you think that the higher the % of taxes people pay = equal higher gov. tax revenue, you are deluded.
“Do you think its fine that one person can have billions of dollars while billions of people are starving to death? Do you really think they deserve that and that all the starving people deserve to be starving? Do you think its fair? Do you think its a morally justifiable situation for one individual to have so much more than they could ever need while so many have nothing? What could anyone possibly have done to deserve that excess in the face of such global poverty?”
Forget about the world, Sigh, we have enough problems in America and you can’t even write solutions about America’s problems. America wants to see freedom in every country, for every country to have the freedom and democracy that we have, so no one needs to starve. America is the world’s most charitable country with the largest donations to poor nations and disaster-hit areas around the world (Haiti, Indonesia, etc.) Those are PRIVATE donations from individuals, I’m not talking about government assistance here.
China and Singapore took their third-world, dirt-poor people to much higher standards of living without stealing (or taking away by force) from America’s millinoaires & billionaires. If China can do it with Deng Xiaoping’s free-market economics and Singapore can do it with Lee Kuan Yew’s free-market economics, ANY country in the world large or small can do it.
There you go again, Sigh, you have forgotten that everyone starts out poor; humanity starts out poor, with nothing. The ‘poor’ in the United States have color TV and one automobile. The poor who don’t work are enjoying alcoholic beverages regularly.
For the poorest of the poorest, the people born with ‘pre-existing conditions’ that would deny them health insurance, we don’t need thousands of pages of a bill, certainly not hundreds of billions of dollars. We can take care of them with much less, and certainly without government programs. Perhaps, Sigh, the word “charity” is foreign to you.
Consider my comment here a ‘public service’ for the likes of you, Sigh, because WarriorWoman91 could have done the same thing, but she’d rather not waste her time on the low-information, logically-challenged type like you.
Your beliefs, summarized:
– Luck doesn’t exist. All people start from an equal level and gain wealth purely through hard work alone. Social mobility is absolute. Nobody inherits wealth. Nobody gains wealth by engaging in criminally fraudulent activity. Monopolies don’t exist. Rent-seeking doesn’t exist. Externalities don’t exist. Nobody ever gets away with even minuscule fraud.
– All employers always act in the interests of their employees. It’s simple for anybody even with average intelligence and bad opportunity to become a millionaire (just use self-examination and introspections!), people just somehow choose not to.
– Giving the rich less money reduces their incentive to produce, but giving the poor less money increases theirs.
– China’s sweatshop wages should be a role model for the USA’s economy.
– Distributing money to poor people somehow reduces economic demand and makes the economy fall apart, because apparently poor people don’t spend money.
– Stuff the government does is force, unless its defending the property rights of the rich, in which case it totally isn’t force.
– Everybody in the human race starts out with nothing, even the children of billionaires.
– Nobody is truly in poverty, even though millions haven’t been able to afford healthcare, and even though the most common cause of bankruptcy is inability to pay healthcare bills. Charity will magically take care of people with pre-existing conditions without government programs, even though that hasn’t happened.
How about you just drop all your ******** rhetoric and admit that you don’t give a damn about the poor/needy/sick, because extending the privileges of the megarich is more important.
*Note: Profanity edited out by the administrators of this website.*
Or … Chad’s intransigence insisted that the grades be curved upward for people meeting certain socioeconomic criteria. Everyone makes an A. Then Chad is surprised when his teacher starts requiring extra credit and 120 is the new 100.
(Thanks for the follow on Twitter. Enjoying your blog from here in Austin, Texas!)