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Author Topic: And some citizens want to get rid of it...  (Read 13818 times)

Offline Kathyp

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #20 on: November 06, 2015, 02:40:38 pm »
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Revolutions are usually started by the middle classes being made the impoverished class

The constitution has nothing to do with the ratio of worker to boss.  Lets hope it never does.

If you look back at most of the revolutions since ours, they have had to do with ideology, and/or oppression.  Often they are started by people who a pretty naive and have no plan for the after revolution government.  Most end in more oppression.  The communist revolutions of various countries are good examples.  People thought they were going to get what others had.  It would be "fair".  They got oppression and more misery. 

We don't need a new constitution.  We need the one we have to be followed. 
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline OldMech

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #21 on: November 06, 2015, 08:34:02 pm »
We don't need a new constitution.  We need the one we have to be followed.


   followed as it was written, rather than how it is constantly re interpreted.
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline derekm

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #22 on: November 10, 2015, 12:30:08 pm »
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Revolutions are usually started by the middle classes being made the impoverished class

The constitution has nothing to do with the ratio of worker to boss.  Lets hope it never does.

If you look back at most of the revolutions since ours, they have had to do with ideology, and/or oppression.  Often they are started by people who a pretty naive and have no plan for the after revolution government.  Most end in more oppression.  The communist revolutions of various countries are good examples.  People thought they were going to get what others had.  It would be "fair".  They got oppression and more misery. 

We don't need a new constitution.  We need the one we have to be followed.
oppression comes when the middle classes start kicking up.
I think you confuse the causes of revolution with the guys who then surface once it gets going. Idealogy needs the fuel of discontent.

1897 France - starvation in the face of wealth  overburdening of the expense of state on the middle class
1848 lots of places in Europe - food prices unemployment contrasting with extreme wealth of nobility and the new industrial rich
March 1917 Russia starvation & middle class discontent
1940, 1950 cuba - water shortages.

Discontent is rising in the xxxx.  Your wealthy classes and the middle classes are disconnecting  as the plutocrats weath increase yet their proportion of the tax burden decreases while more rests on the middle classes.  Typical responses from those in power are
Blaim a minority
Blaim  an external third party
Start a War
History repeats, why would the U.S. be immune?
If they increased energy bill for your home by a factor of 4.5 would you consider that cruel? If so why are you doing that to your bees?

Offline Kathyp

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #23 on: November 10, 2015, 06:24:24 pm »
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Your wealthy classes and the middle classes are disconnecting  as the plutocrats weath increase yet their proportion of the tax burden decreases while more rests on the middle classes.


This is a popular notion, but not true.  the top 25% of earners in this country pay 85+ percent of the tax.  the bottom 50% pays between 0 and 3% of the tax, and much of what they pay, they get back, some getting back more than they paid in.

It is true that the rich are making more, but that has nothing to do with anything.  In this country, it is not true that if someone makes more, someone else makes less.  The pool of money is not static.

The biggest problem we have right now is that the economy is stagnant.  That has more to do with policies of the government, than with anything to do with business. 

The US is not immune to unrest, but if it comes to a civil war now it would not be because some people are making to much money.  It would be to preserve our union and our constitution, which the current administration uses as toilet paper. 
redistribution to pacify the masses never works.  A good economy in which everyone has a shot at doing well, always works. 
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline Dallasbeek

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #24 on: November 10, 2015, 07:26:29 pm »
Actually, according to a study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, as reported by CNBC, the top 1% of wage earners will pay 45.7% of individual income taxes in 2014.

How do people who pay little or no taxes feel entitled to complain about the 1%?  Easy:  they feel entitled to complain about anything and everything.  The real question is why those in power join them in complaining about "millionaires and billionaires" when they know that when they leave office they, like Bill Clinton, will reap millions just for giving speeches.  Whipping up class envy gets votes for Democrats, but when the revolution comes and the masses start shedding blood, rich Democrats will be just as subject to the guillotine as rich Republicans.  Blood lust is a terrible thing to see and I hope people tone down the rhetoric before they stir up more trouble than they can handle.
"Liberty lives in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no laws, no court can save it." - Judge Learned Hand, 1944

Offline Kathyp

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #25 on: November 10, 2015, 09:22:33 pm »
Is that kind of trouble comes I think it will be coming from our new immigrants who came here for a better kind of socialism and didn't get it.
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline OldMech

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #26 on: November 10, 2015, 10:21:33 pm »
The US is not immune to unrest, but if it comes to a civil war now it would not be because some people are making to much money.  It would be to preserve our union and our constitution, which the current administration uses as toilet paper.
redistribution to pacify the masses never works.  A good economy in which everyone has a shot at doing well, always works. 

  wow! Well said!
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline hjon71

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #27 on: November 11, 2015, 01:19:12 am »


I dislike going off topic but....
I think some people like to focus on income to deflect attention from the real issue, wealth.


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Quite difficult matters can be explained even to a slow-witted man, if only he has not already adopted a wrong opinion about them; but the simplest things cannot be made clear even to a very intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, and knows indubitably, the truth of the matter under consideration. -Leo Tolstoy

Offline hjon71

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #28 on: November 11, 2015, 01:22:27 am »
Duplicate post
Quite difficult matters can be explained even to a slow-witted man, if only he has not already adopted a wrong opinion about them; but the simplest things cannot be made clear even to a very intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, and knows indubitably, the truth of the matter under consideration. -Leo Tolstoy

Offline Kathyp

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #29 on: November 11, 2015, 11:01:12 am »
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I think some people like to focus on income to deflect attention from the real issue, wealth.

but again, so what?  The only reason wealth would make a difference is if the pot of money was limited.  It is not, and even less so in a good economy. 

We'd hardly want to be without wealthy people.  they are the founders of charitable groups, they hire people, they buy stuff.  They are generally good for the economy and especially when the rest of us can't afford to do any of those things. 

The wealthy to acquire more when times are hard for the rest of us, but again, so what? 
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #30 on: November 11, 2015, 12:13:50 pm »
That is a good chart. Now make up that same chart for every other country in the world and then compare it to our chart and I think you would be amazed by the comparison.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
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Offline Dallasbeek

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #31 on: November 11, 2015, 01:25:05 pm »
Kathy, "So what?" is the correct answer to everything.  If a person is wealthy, so what?  If a person is gay, so what?  If he/she is racist, so what?  If whatever-you-can-imagine, so what?

Philosophically, nobody owes anyone else more than that they mind their own business and not try to mind the next guy's business.  So what?

"Liberty lives in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no laws, no court can save it." - Judge Learned Hand, 1944

Offline hjon71

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Re: And some citizens want to get rid of it...
« Reply #32 on: November 11, 2015, 07:21:49 pm »
"So what?"
 Good question actually, even if it wasn't meant to be.

Kathy is right of course, the pot of money isn't limited. We can print all we want, funny little thing happens when we do though.....

Wealth(actually Resources) is however limited. Land, as Henry George points out is the most important and absolutely limited.
Here's an example straight from the book-
Place one hundred men on an island from which there is no escape, and whether you make one of these men the absolute owner of the other ninety-nine, or the absolute owner of the soil of the island, will make no difference either to him or to them. In the one case, as the other, the one will be the absolute master of the ninety-nine; His power extending even to life and death, for simply to refuse them permission to live upon the island would be to force them into the sea.

See the relation? The more wealth concentrates into a smaller percentage the closer we move to being on that island.

Do I want governments to confiscate that wealth and dole it out as they see fit? Are you crazy?
No. What I want is for people to understand charity and service like Minoj Bhargava. Never heard of him? Watch this-
https://youtu.be/YY7f1t9y9a0

My favorite quote comes straight from the gospel. See if you can guess what it is.


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Quite difficult matters can be explained even to a slow-witted man, if only he has not already adopted a wrong opinion about them; but the simplest things cannot be made clear even to a very intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, and knows indubitably, the truth of the matter under consideration. -Leo Tolstoy

 

anything