I ABSOLUTELY contend that society as a whole is much different, because it is. While people are motivated to care for their families, they are not generally motivated to extend that same care to the nation and every person in it.
And when you impose that level of caring by law, you weaken the incentive of people to achieve, and you weaken the country as a whole. Whereas if you left people alone to prosper, the effect of that is that EVERYONE rises.
That’s why we have a democracy. Fight away.
Just respect the tenets of that democracy. Fight to change the minds of the people, fight to persuade the legislature… that’s all good. Complain about the system when things don’t go your way, and piously support it when they do? No.
My conscience is in great shape. Thanks.
I do believe in the trickle-down theory, and I don’t agree it’s as ineffective as you say.
UnwrittenNocturne, I could have told you Bricker worships The Process as if it were a revelation from Og Himself. If the majority of the American citizenry voted to ratify an amendment outlawing homosexuality on pain of torture and death by stoning, Bricker would shrug and say, “Will of the majority”.
No, you’re not going to be allowed to get away with this. I’m not that stupid.
You owe society every single day of your life. You are protected by the police; your garbage is picked up by the Dept of Sanitation or by a contractor hired by your municipality, and paid for by your taxes. Your child/children is educated by the society, regardless of whether you send that child to public school or not; society is more than just the government. The rule of law you take for granted is given you by this society. The currency in your pocket is a product of a social contract in which it has been decided that that particular piece of paper is good as a means of exchange. You owe society in so many different ways for so many different things that I really have no idea how people on the right, or libertarians, live with themselves for their ignorance, arrogance, stupidity, and selfishness. To be one of you you would have to deny, every minute of every day, that you are a member of a society that looks after your welfare and that of your family.
The alternative is the anarchy of the rule of the strongest; feudalism in the old days, tyranny in our day. You are advocating tyranny.
But you’re not whining about your neighbor’s pocket. You’re whining about yours. So let’s not portray this as anything other than your own selfishness at work. You don’t really care about your neighbor, let alone his pocket. 'Cause if you did, you wouldn’t keep comparing armed robbery* to services that help your neighbor. Sure you give to charity. Gold star for you! But for someone who claims the philanthropic high-ground, you seem extra convinced that poor people deserve to be poor and the rich deserve to be rich. Makes me wonder why you even bother with charity, if your outlook is like that.
This is not to say you can’t disagree with the way tax dollars are spent on welfare and still be a caring person, but it is possible to dislike a certain policy without calling it a crime. Just like you can have a legitimate beef with someone without calling them a Nazi. And that’s the problem with Liberitarians: they don’t get that rather simple concept. Those guys throw the words “coercion” and “extortion” and “mugging” around like punctuation marks, seemingly unaware how shrill and hysterical they sound when they do so. If only they would realize reasoned discourse usually eschews hyperbole , then maybe that pipe dream of a party could finally get some traction.
I want to amend this myself to note that Bricker would most likely be appalled at the content of that amendment, consider it a very bad idea, and try like hell to smuggle as many of his gay friends and relative to Canada as possible. He would still, however, consider it a right and proper thing as long as it was passed in the fashion prescribed by the Constitution.
Bricker is, in my opinion, not a homophobe. He’s a stiff-necked process-worshipper and can be a jackass at times, but he’s not a homophobe.
Of course, you’re right that society provides benefits.
It seems to me that each person enjoys those benefits equally.
Why is it, then, that we ask some people to pay more for the exact same benefits than others?
I do not object to paying for what I get. I don’t even object for paying for services I may not actually get, like police, because it’s necessary to pay to have a police force in place, even if I personally never call the police.
So I’m with you there. These things, cost, and we all must pay for them.
Only why should I pay more than someone else, and less than still another person?
Because if you make more, you owe more to the society that made that possible.
Within reason, of course, but unless you’re completely dense, it should be obvious that a richer person will be able to pay more for fire protection than a poorer person, even though both will benefit from the fire department equally if their house catches on fire. Fire trucks cost, and are a fixed cost. Therefore, the cost for such a piece of infrastructure must, if society is to afford it, be paid for more out of the pocket of a rich man than out of the pocket of a poor man. Ditto for an Abrams tank, a police car, or an elementary school.
I would think this kind of thing would be obvious.
I still have a hundred paper slip bet the 'Pubbies get their asses handed to them in '08 with Mr. Bricker. My politeness towards him will rise in proportion to how close we get to '08, as I fully expect to collect on that bet, and as I will have a son in college, I’ll need every penny I can get.
Between Dubya, DeLay, and Santorum, it’s a slam dunk.
Your stance is much more nuanced than this quote, Bricker, but it’s a handy springboard for my reaction. Just sayin’ I’m not going for a cheap shot here…
The thread drift about charity work didn’t really wander all that far afield. Your example reminded me of a point in Peter Robinson’s It’s My Party, an admittedly light-hearted look at the GOP by a firm loyalist. (Think of him as P.J. O’Rourke Lite. Very lite–with pop spelling entirely intentional.) In his defense of neocon thought, he glided past care what society owes to the unfortunate with a vague assertion that religious charities should take care of all that. I was more than a bit dumbfounded for several reasons, not the least because the tie between religion and care seemed so antithetical to conservative values.
I don’t underrate the huge good religous charities do. Two Catholic charities are housed within several blocks of my house, and they work wonders–without asking or caring the faith of those who need them. But they’re also perpetually underfunded and understaffed. They can barely scratch the surface of what’s needed.
It seems to me the neocon definition of ‘society’ has narrowed down to "shouldn’t have to pay a dime toward anything I don’t personally approve of’. That’s stupid. And unworkable. There can’t be referenda on every tiny, picky little thing–and that’s about where PBS ranks in terms of the feds gushing money.
Taking aim at PBS is stupid because it’s so transparently petty. PBS is chump change outta what Big Brother yanks out of my paycheck. It’s a shell game; lookee! over there. (Whisk goes the payoff with the other hand.) I loathe the blatant, irresponsible waste in goverment. Talk about squandered resources. I’m just sick and tired of a political approach that amounts to little more than, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
I don’t have to certify my income before the store figures out what to charge me for groceries. I don’t pay on a sliding scale for my large buttered popcorn at the movies.
Of course, I am ABLE to pay more for those than others. But I don’t.
Why should the police car cost society in a way that my personal car doesn’t cost me?
And THIS would be true only if society somehow decided to give me more. What I earn, I earn because someone is willing to pay me. Freely. You view my salary as a gift from society, with some sort of reciprocal obligation. Why?
Really, if it’s not obvious I’m not going to waste my time explaining it to you. It would have to start all the way back with the whole concept of two plus two equalling four instead of, say, twenty four.
I really don’t have that kind of time.
That was directed at your previous post, obviously.
To the latter one, no, I don’t see it that way, any more than I would see mine that way. But the fact that you have attained the success that you have means you do owe more, as a simple matter of, as Socrates would have put it, geometrical, or proportional, justice.
I’m beginning to realize why Plato insisted that his students learn geometry before they could do philosophy.