# Ah honest attempt to 'see the other side' by a Progressive

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ah-honest-attempt-to-see-the-other-side-by-a-progressive/926354
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [November 24, 2020, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ah-honest-attempt-to-see-the-other-side-by-a-progressive/926354 "2020-11-24T15:08:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 124

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### Author: ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)
#### Post date: [November 26, 2020, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ah-honest-attempt-to-see-the-other-side-by-a-progressive/926354/124 "2020-11-26T14:59:26Z")

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> [@Sam\_Stone](#):
>
> Class warfare is alien to me. I don’t hate people based on how much money they do or don’t make. I don’t care if your wealth is inherited or if you earned it. What you have is irrelevant to me, unless you stole it, extorted it, or have it because government carved out a special place for you.

You’ve written a lot of great stuff. I’m not sure how _much_ of it I’ll be able to get into, but I want to focus on this piece, if I may.

I don’t think their contribution to society ends with their Great Idea, even if it creates lots of jobs.

And I strongly suspect that they – _as a cohort_ – pay next to no taxes, like Donald Trump.

I started a thread about this subject that I’d invite you to peruse:

> [@Do the rich pay their fair share?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/921817):
>
> I did a quick search and found very little specifically about this. In association with the latest story about DJT’s tax returns, I heard a statistic that the wealthiest Americans pay an average of 24% in Federal Income Tax. I presume they’re talking about [Effective Tax Rate](https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/taxes/what-is-the-effective-tax-rate-15102865). But Effective Tax Rate reminds me of an old joke in medicine: The surgery was a complete success, but the patient died. Sometimes, our definitions differ from the definitions used by others. According to [Pew Research](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/10/06/a-closer-look-at-who-does-and-doesnt-pay-u-s-income-tax/): …

Why is _their_ wealth _any_ of _my_ business ?

Because I strongly suspect that middle class America – as an unwitting part of The Deal To Which Not One Single Solitary American Knowingly Consented – is subsidizing the snot out of the wealthiest, in an effort to get the level of government that, as a nation, we tend to support.

It’s not really quite so much class _warfare,_ IMHO, and clandestine class _welfare._

It’s also one of those great ironies about the term ‘redistribution of wealth.’ Both sides do it. The left tends to push it downward, while the right tends to push it upward.

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