Here come the Democratic Taxes

[Sea Demon]

Yes. It is horrible. And if you look into it, and read what Rangel (D) is saying, he plans for new entitlements and extensions of the hideous Earned Income Tax Credit....and other tax-payer ripoffs like that. His goal is to create more government dependancy, using money from people not dependant on the government. Well, one thing you can expect is higher taxes from capital gains. So forget short term or medium term investments with any Democrat in control. Killing incentive, and shrinking economic growth is only a start to what these Democrats will bring. It amazes me how people on the left have lost all love of personal freedom and the personal responsibility that goes with it.

Hillary Quote

What will a Hillary Presidency be like?

“We just can’t trust the American people to make those types of choices…Government has to make those choices for people” ~Hillary Clinton

If that doesn’t give you a good idea, this quote may help…

“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you … We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. ~Explaining her opposition to President Bush’s tax cut in San Francisco (28 June 2004)

[Sea Demon]

Originally Posted by waste gate

Hillary Quote

What will a Hillary Presidency be like?

“We just can’t trust the American people to make those types of choices…Government has to make those choices for people” ~Hillary Clinton

If that doesn’t give you a good idea, this quote may help…

“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you … We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good. ~Explaining her opposition to President Bush’s tax cut in San Francisco (28 June 2004)

That's exactly the mentality of the Democrat Party. In their minds, your money doesn't belong to you. It's the government's money. And you are their property. In their minds, they want to be able to tell you how much money they will let you keep. This is why I say people on the left have no love of personal freedom. Because they support this type of governmental control over personal property.

[DeepSix]

Originally Posted by Sea Demon

That's exactly the mentality of the Democrat Party. In their minds, your money doesn't belong to you. It's the government's money. And you are their property. In their minds, they want to be able to tell you how much money they will let you keep. This is why I say people on the left have no love of personal freedom. Because they support this type of governmental control over personal property.

Yup. The idea that government knows what is best for me or anyone else is anathema to the principles that this country is founded on, and yet this country is apparently full of Nerf-brained people who are willing to accept it. What amazes me is that people apparently can't see the Left's Big Brother policies for what they are. The substance of liberty is gradually and quietly being confused with an addiction to luxury. Cushier lifestyles will not make our country any freer, any wealthier, or any stronger. Yet we seem willing to go along anyway.

My favorite Hillary quote is (as put by Giuliani in the Republican debate): "I have a million ideas and America can't afford them all."

[DeepIron]

“We just can’t trust the American people to make those types of choices…Government has to make those choices for people”

I would think that is true now more than ever. Mr and Mrs Average Knucklehead are more interested in who got flushed off "Dancing with the Stars" than hearing candidates in a political debate. The media will take their slant and focus on whatever dirt gets them better ratings.

C'mon, Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton get more attention from the media and American public than Clinton, Obama or any other political hopeful.

Don't believe me? Stand around the water cooler sometime and just listen to what people are discussing... betcha it ain't politics bubba...

And you want the public to make "informed decisions"? :rotfl:

[Fish]

Originally Posted by DeepIron

I would think that is true now more than ever. Mr and Mrs Average Knucklehead are more interested in who got flushed off "Dancing with the Stars" than hearing candidates in a political debate. The media will take their slant and focus on whatever dirt gets them better ratings.

C'mon, Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton get more attention from the media and American public than Clinton, Obama or any other political hopeful.

Don't believe me? Stand around the water cooler sometime and just listen to what people are discussing... betcha it ain't politics bubba...

And you want the public to make "informed decisions"? :rotfl:

Read this.

I have this ongoing discussion with a longtime reader who also just so happens to be a longtime Oakland high school teacher, a wonderful guy who's seen generations of teens come and generations go and who has a delightful poetic sensibility and quirky outlook on his life and his family and his beloved teaching career.

And he often writes to me in response to something I might've written about the youth of today, anything where I comment on the various nefarious factors shaping their minds and their perspectives and whether or not, say, EMFs and junk food and cell phones are melting their brains and what can be done and just how bad it might all be.
His response: It is not bad at all. It's absolutely horrifying.
My friend often summarizes for me what he sees, firsthand, every day and every month, year in and year out, in his classroom. He speaks not merely of the sad decline in overall intellectual acumen among students over the years, not merely of the astonishing spread of lazy slackerhood, or the fact that cell phones and iPods and excess TV exposure are, absolutely and without reservation, short-circuiting the minds of the upcoming generations. Of this, he says, there is zero doubt.
Nor does he speak merely of the notion that kids these days are overprotected and wussified and don't spend enough time outdoors and don't get any real exercise and therefore can't, say, identify basic plants, or handle a tool, or build, well, anything at all. Again, these things are a given. Widely reported, tragically ignored, nothing new.
No, my friend takes it all a full step — or rather, leap — further. It is not merely a sad slide. It is not just a general dumbing down. It is far uglier than that.
We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait.
It's gotten so bad that, as my friend nears retirement, he says he is very seriously considering moving out of the country so as to escape what he sees will be the surefire collapse of functioning American society in the next handful of years due to the absolutely irrefutable destruction, the shocking — and nearly hopeless — dumb-ification of the American brain. It is just that bad.
Now, you may think he's merely a curmudgeon, a tired old teacher who stopped caring long ago. Not true. Teaching is his life. He says he loves his students, loves education and learning and watching young minds awaken. Problem is, he is seeing much less of it. It's a bit like the melting of the polar ice caps. Sure, there's been alarmist data about it for years, but until you see it for yourself, the deep visceral dread doesn't really hit home.
He cites studies, reports, hard data, from the appalling effects of television on child brain development (i.e.; any TV exposure before 6 years old and your kid's basic cognitive wiring and spatial perceptions are pretty much scrambled for life), to the fact that, because of all the insidious mandatory testing teachers are now forced to incorporate into the curriculum, of the 182 school days in a year, there are 110 when such testing is going on somewhere at Oakland High. As one of his colleagues put it, "It's like weighing a calf twice a day, but never feeding it."
But most of all, he simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens' decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." Not a single student could do it.
It gets worse. My friend cites the fact that, of the 6,000 high school students he estimates he's taught over the span of his career, only a small fraction now make it to his grade with a functioning understanding of written English. They do not know how to form a sentence. They cannot write an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after giving an assignment that required drawing lines, he realized that not a single student actually knew how to use a ruler.
It is, in short, nothing less than a tidal wave of dumb, with once-passionate, increasingly exasperated teachers like my friend nearly powerless to stop it. The worst part: It's not the kids' fault. They're merely the victims of a horribly failed educational system.
Then our discussion often turns to the meat of it, the bigger picture, the ugly and unavoidable truism about the lack of need among the government and the power elite in this nation to create a truly effective educational system, one that actually generates intelligent, thoughtful, articulate citizens.
Hell, why should they? After all, the dumber the populace, the easier it is to rule and control and launch unwinnable wars and pass laws telling them that sex is bad and TV is good and God knows all, so just pipe down and eat your Taco Bell Double-Supremo Burrito and be glad we don't arrest you for posting dirty pictures on your cute little blog.
This is about when I try to offer counterevidence, a bit of optimism. For one thing, I've argued generational relativity in this space before, suggesting maybe kids are no scarier or dumber or more dangerous than they've ever been, and that maybe some of the problem is merely the same old awkward generation gap, with every current generation absolutely convinced the subsequent one is terrifically stupid and malicious and will be the end of society as a whole. Just the way it always seems.
I also point out how, despite all the evidence of total public-education meltdown, I keep being surprised, keep hearing from/about teens and youth movements and actions that impress the hell out of me. Damn kids made the Internet what it is today, fer chrissakes. Revolutionized media. Broke all the rules. Still are.
Hell, some of the best designers, writers, artists, poets, chefs, and so on that I meet are in their early to mid-20s. And the nation's top universities are still managing, despite a factory-churning mentality, to crank out young minds of astonishing ability and acumen. How did these kids do it? How did they escape the horrible public school system? How did they avoid the great dumbing down of America? Did they never see a TV show until they hit puberty? Were they all born and raised elsewhere, in India and Asia and Russia? Did they all go to Waldorf or Montessori and eat whole-grain breads and play with firecrackers and take long walks in wild nature? Are these kids flukes? Exceptions? Just lucky?
My friend would say, well, yes, that's precisely what most of them are. Lucky, wealthy, foreign-born, private-schooled ... and increasingly rare. Most affluent parents in America — and many more who aren't — now put their kids in private schools from day one, and the smart ones give their kids no TV and minimal junk food and no video games. (Of course, this in no way guarantees a smart, attuned kid, but compared to the odds of success in the public school system, it sure seems to help). This covers about, what, 3 percent of the populace?
As for the rest, well, the dystopian evidence seems overwhelming indeed, to the point where it might be no stretch at all to say the biggest threat facing America is perhaps not global warming, not perpetual warmongering, not garbage food or low-level radiation or way too much Lindsay Lohan, but a populace far too ignorant to know how to properly manage any of it, much less change it all for the better. What, too fatalistic? Don't worry. Soon enough, no one will know what the word even means.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...otes102407.DTL

Originally Posted by DeepSix

Yup. The idea that government knows what is best for me or anyone else is anathema to the principles that this country is founded on, and yet this country is apparently full of Nerf-brained people who are willing to accept it. What amazes me is that people apparently can't see the Left's Big Brother policies for what they are. The substance of liberty is gradually and quietly being confused with an addiction to luxury. Cushier lifestyles will not make our country any freer, any wealthier, or any stronger. Yet we seem willing to go along anyway.

My favorite Hillary quote is (as put by Giuliani in the Republican debate): "I have a million ideas and America can't afford them all."

And Rudy had the correct response; Hillary, America (US) can't afford you.

Unfortunately Rudy has some other positions on issues which give me pause.

[DeepSix]

Same here; it's still too early to tell, but he does have "electability." Several of the candidates appeal to me for different reasons, not the least of which is who can be successfully "marketed" in the general election. I thought the Florida debate was good; it will be interesting to see who the running mates are and how the "issues" get played after Iowa.

[Sea Demon]

Originally Posted by DeepSix

Same here; it's still too early to tell, but he does have "electability." Several of the candidates appeal to me for different reasons, not the least of which is who can be successfully "marketed" in the general election. I thought the Florida debate was good; it will be interesting to see who the running mates are and how the "issues" get played after Iowa.

I agree it will be interesting. As far as running mates go, I think one of these front-runners may just end up as a VP running mate. Maybe Thompson and Guiliani???

[Sailor Steve]

Thanks for that, Waste Gate. There's nothing like a direct quote to show what a person really means.

I've often said that before anyone can be in a position to touch taxes, they must first be of the simple opinion: "All taxes are evil. A necessary evil, of course, but evil nonetheless."

[Letum]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I've often said that before anyone can be in a position to touch taxes, they must first be of the simple opinion: "All taxes are evil. A necessary evil, of course, but evil nonetheless."

Why?

Tax is the only way to achieve social justice.

Originally Posted by Letum

Why?

Tax is the only way to achieve social justice.

What is social justice? Those that suceed pay for those that don't?

From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need?

[DeepIron]

What is social justice? Those that suceed pay for those that don't?

Sounds more like a "social equality" or even more like "Social Evolution" ... I can see it now, survival of two classes: the richest, and the most adaptable at scrounging. A completely polarized society where there is no mistake where one stands socially or fiscally... The very top and absolute bottom tiers of the social ladder, the owners and the owned, the haves and the never-will-haves...

[P_Funk]

Originally Posted by waste gate

What is social justice? Those that suceed pay for those that don't?

From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need?

What is success? And what is a failure to succeed? You speak in general terms and assume that they fit nicely into your logic. But really what determines success? The richest people in the world are almost exclusively those who inherited vast bodies of wealth and continue to expand them without effort because they have the right to take the bulk of the profits and use those profits to expand into more wealth. As Letum said the hardest working don't get nearly the value of their work. The Value Added of a single person's work is completely disproportionate to the wage he receives. When the economy goes sour, largely due to those who have wealth getting greedy and pushing the market too hard so that supply exceeds demand, the first thing to go down is wages. Those that did their jobs lose most because those that have so much don't want to stop making so much.

I also noticed that nobody bothered to answer Letum's statement, instead enjoying the moral superiority of taking shots at Hillary.

[Sea Demon]

Originally Posted by P_Funk

What is success? And what is a failure to succeed? You speak in general terms and assume that they fit nicely into your logic. But really what determines success? The richest people in the world are almost exclusively those who inherited vast bodies of wealth and continue to expand them without effort because they have the right to take the bulk of the profits and use those profits to expand into more wealth. As Letum said the hardest working don't get nearly the value of their work. The Value Added of a single person's work is completely disproportionate to the wage he receives. When the economy goes sour, largely due to those who have wealth getting greedy and pushing the market too hard so that supply exceeds demand, the first thing to go down is wages. Those that did their jobs lose most because those that have so much don't want to stop making so much.

I also noticed that nobody bothered to answer Letum's statement, instead enjoying the moral superiority of taking shots at Hillary.

Absolute hogwash. Read this:

http://www.forbes.com/2001/06/21/top15billionaires.html

With the exception of the Saudi Prince, these people are providing global goods and services at an astronomical rate. And they've expanded or acheived greater success through nominal economic expansion. Maybe you have an HP desktop or a Dell. Is Michael Dell evil to you? Are the shareholders of HP evil to you for getting returns on their investments? How about MS shareholders? Are you jealous? Of course, you have the disease called "wealth envy". So you don't get how real wealth is gained, earned, or how risk capital can be turned into profits. And how that is actually good for a nations economy.

BTW, who should assign the value of someone's work? Remember, you nor the government owns jobs in the private sector. The employer does. And every employer I've come into contact with has paid the fair market value for the work done, and for the cost of living in the area lived in. If the employer does not pay a wage commensurate with a competitive wage, he won't be able to cover the positions. The reason why low skilled occupations, like burger flipper, meat packer, and such don't make as much is because the market is saturated with low skilled people looking for those types of jobs. And the turn over is rather high in those occupations. That's also why higher skilled jobs, and higher education will usually result in a higher net worth.

BTW, I used to be a "have not" myself. I'm now pretty well off. And I'm a "person of color" . How did I do it in such a so-called "unjust" society?!?!?! Bottom line, if people don't bust their butt's, they simply will not acheive success. In a free society, you make choices. Some choices make you poor. Like making babies you can't afford. Or dropping out of school and partying. Or choosing to engage in criminal activity. Or just settling for whatever comes your way, rather than pursuing something that can bring better rewards. You'll only go as high as your work, investment, time, energy, choices, persistence, and innovation take you. And you are free to pursue or not pursue higher goals for yourself. But if you don't pursue higher goals, you only have yourself to blame. Likewise, if you choose poorly like the examples above, you only should look in the mirror for the culprit. Personal freedom, personal responsibility, and good decision making are a part of living in a free nation. If you can't handle it, Chavez is having his little revolution in Venezuela. Please move there. Because whining here won't get you what you want. Because people in "Red" revolution societies usually are or become destitute, oppressed, and unhappy, they will usually do anything to escape their marxist "paradise". I don't know why some in the free world refuse to learn that lesson.

Originally Posted by The Wosman

People, including myself, work hard for what we have and I will be damned if I am going to let Hillary in or Charlie Rangel walk in and take it and decide how to spend it.

Well Said! Count me in as someone who has worked too hard to allow these hacks to confiscate my property to give to those who refuse to take care of themselves. I don't mind paying my fair share of taxes to take care of infrastructure, military, national R & D like space research, and such. But I'm sick of paying for things that grown adults should be doing for themselves.