Why do libertarians seem to like the rich yet dislike the poor?

As is yours.

 

So let me see, IndridCold.

What you are telling us is you do not identify with successful people. Instead, you identify with these people.

It is obvious you are suffering from a very bad case of "class envy" and everything you say should be viewed in this light and consequently taken with nothing more than a gain of salt!

Here are the people IndridCold obviously identifies with!

The Obama Stash of Stimulus Cash -- Dolla Dolla Bills, Y'all!!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19v5Kjmc8FI&feature=related"]The Obama Stash of Stimulus Cash -- Dolla Dolla Bills, Y'all!! - YouTube[/ame]

 

For some reason many people with strange views gravitate to the libertarian side. The majority of the conspiracy theorists I have known were libertarians. Although each party has its extremists, the libertarian party seems to garner more than its fair share.

Regardless, the core libertarian principles are explained by Thomas Paine in Common Sense:

 

You are very correct, mikezila.



These are the very people we need to keep out of the United States!

All they do is drive up the cost and expense of our very generous "entitlement" programs!

 

That would be a start. Someone like him would lock down congress for four years, preventing any further government growth. Unfortunately without a huge change in congress, nothing will reduce the size of our current government.

 

That was perfect...and I agree wholeheartedly.

 

It is clear that you have only met people claiming to be liberatarians...if not than you would know that that statement is completely false. I do believe you fear a true libertarian because what they have the most of is self-reliance, and they believe that this is what EVERYONE should have.

 

Exactly; people SHOULD be self-reliant. My problems is that if all the wealth is owned by a few rich people, it's impossible to be self-reliant because you wouldn't be at access to the things you need to prosper, because it'd all be bottled up at the top. Tell me this: if you had the knowledge and skill to do anything in the world, but couldn't actually do any of it because the things (resources) you needed to work with, were all being taken by the top few amongst Earth, and everyone else was starving as a result?

Do you have the capacity to get that? Or not? My guess is not.

Lastly, some people (especially the elderly, like my grandparents, as well as the disabled, like my mother as well as grandparents at the moment), are actually incapable of being self-reliant and do deserve help. It is the obligation of the rest of society to do so, to at least a minimal extent.

 

Perhaps because the rich generally leave folk alone while the poor try to mine, through politics, our wallets.

 

I get it. It's a flamebait thread.

 

Most people who don't have jobs DO have the mental and physical capacity to at least survive, if not prosper. I have a job so this doesn't apply to me personally, but I am aware that most people without them are physically and mentally competent, at least minimally. Some people aren't, but that's a different discussion.

However, you're wrong about "income capacity". In this society, if it weren't for certain benefits (especially social security, workers compensation and medicare/medicaid, none of which I get or know much about personally but I am aware are necessary for a lot of people), a lot of people, even ones that ARE dedicated, want a job and want to work and are intelligent and able to do so, would simply starve. Or at least, not be prosperous at all and barely survive.

Now, granted the rich would get richer and have more stuff to hoard and never really use and pretty much just own for the sake of owning it; but it's not fair to allow that to happen when people who's hearts and minds are in the right place, are starving as a result.

I don't care if you disagree.

Oh so you admit that you DON'T want to enable the "poor", eh? Cool. Very cool. Thanks for admitting it.

And if I were rich and making my money off of capitalizing on others' labor (i.e. being a large business owner, etc.), I would NOT EVER consider it "punishing me" to tax me a higher percentage than most much less wealthy people were taxed, in order to help society be an orderly and comfortable place to live. So I don't understand this mentality in others.

The rest of what you said (that I cut off) is an attempt to stray from my argument, which is that money/wealth BUYS POWER.

Do you wanna live in a society which is effectively mafia ruled by the top 1% of wealthy people, because of their ability to buy people off, among other things?

I sure as Hell don't.

It's not just about "government", it's about Law and justice. IMHO, allowing a system to take place where the rich hoard all and exploit all is not "justice" and CERTAINLY not "freedom".

"Greed is good. Unregulated greed is evil"-a great quote from a capitalist I've come across on another forum.

What the living Hell are you babbling about? Are you so stupid as to try and shove words in my mouth and say that I said things that I didn't say? That wouldn't be very wise of you since it'd just make you look like a moron.

Rich people are never "exploited".

I'm under the assumption that there are only limited resources on this planet, and if all or most of these resources are being bottled up in the top few, everyone else will suffer as a result.

Yeah, that's right, call me utilitarian. Call me "liberal". But that's the way it is, and rightfully it should be restricted and barred from happening.

You don't have the right to work the system (system of capitalism or whatever) to where you and your cronyist friends, or whoever, make up 1% of the people yet have control/ownership over 99% of resources. Or anywhere even remotely close to it. No matter what you do, you don't deserve that.

DING DING DING!!!!

And WHY do you think that is? Huh?

RICH PEOPLE who BUY politicians!! DUH!!!

I think someone's starting to figure this out, whether or not they realize it.

Look at my previous post. I'd LOVE for everyone to be self-reliant entirely, but that's not only a pipe dream because of illness, injury, old age etc., it's also a raging pipe dream beyond belief if we were to have a system to where the top few could own everything or most of everything.

But there are TWO ingredients necessary for being self reliant. The first is competency. The second is resources.

Tell me this. You're probably both mentally and physically competent, aren't you? Now what if you were stuck in the middle of the Sahara desert and didn't have any RESOURCES (the big R-word) to survive with? Would you be self-reliant then?

No, you would not. Despite being mentally and physically able and competent, you wouldn't have the resources necessary to even survive, let alone prosper. You'd be as independent as a crippled toddler at that point, despite having the competency of a normal adult male (I assume).

To not see this VERY simple point and why the top few percentage of "rich" people should NOT be allowed to own most of the resources, is pure lunacy.

It's not about "punishing rich people" or "breeding dependence". That is simply lunacy and reductionism that shows a lack of critical thinking and/or intellectual honesty, flat out.

 

To not see that the rich are doing the same thing against you through corporatism, is to prove that you're a total idiot.

I'm not calling you an idiot, I'm just saying that if you don't see that this is what's actually going on, you're not too bright.

 

Kind of. Seems to basically boil down to: bribes are bad; rich people can afford to bribe; let's take the rich people's money.

Dude... back away from the key board. It's better for everyone...

 

NO. I did NOT say "let's take the rich people's money". That could be interpreted to mean that we should take ALL the money from "rich" people, or that we should even limit them to average income, or anything near it.

What I'm saying is that corporate rich people are more economically damaging to everyone else, than the poor could ever hope to be in the way of social security, medicare etc. Especially with CORPORATE WELFARE and the like.

It seems like it just boils down to "I want to be greedy and I don't care who my greed hurts, I just don't want anyone in my way". How "freedom loving".

 

It's not just about bribes. Get that notion out of your head.

It's about being able to terminate peoples' jobs for no reason, to exploit and abuse desperation, and to commit a million other injustices that I'm fed up with.

Don't like it? Then either yell at me over the keyboard like a pus*y or sue me for online harassment. *chuckles*

 

I'm actually glad that my rich, greedy boss can fire me for no reason. That fact resides in the back of my head and improves my daily performance. Unfortunately, my job requires me to work with blue state union types now and then...the slowest, laziest, most unethical workers.

But at least they're hard to fire.

 

They can fire you from the job that they created and they gave you. They can't take away your ability to earn money. They only have the power over you that you have chosen to give them by taking something they offered. That exchange - labor for money - is voluntary and either party can terminate it. If they do, you still have your labor, that you can exchange with someone else for money.

 

Then you should marry your boss. It's obvious that you have erotic crushes and feelings for him and love being dominated by him. In the bedroom, does he spank your ass during foreplay?

Back to a serious note. You don't have any idea what I personally have gone through and what I've seen. My grandma (a young grandma for how old I am) about a year ago got fired due to injury (she had a heat stroke), but what's important is what happened before that.

She worked as a maintenance lady for an apartment-renting company and before the new owners took over, she was doing great. She worked hard as hell but got paid hella good.

But when the new owner took over (who was having personal problems and is what probably caused this), she started getting abused. She would be told one thing and then get HARASSED for doing it because of a supposed change in policies by the company, that she obviously didn't know about because they made these policy changes immediately after she was ordered to follow other policies. She literally SET THE RECORD for the highest rate of turn-overs for the company for that whole year, and about a month later, she got a wage DEDUCTION of 5 DOLLARS AN HOUR!! Which is HUGE for what her salary was. Things like that are only the beginning; she went through other things that are also horrendous, but I'm not sure about the details of them.

Point is, it is NOT acceptable to abuse and harass employees like that. Under ANY circumstances.

Do you hear me?

 

It was their CHOICE to even come into a position of ownership over so much resources that they were even in a position to "create" jobs. They have more responsibility as a result.

Part of this responsibility, IMHO, is not exploiting desperation and taking advantage of people who are dedicated, but not in the same position. And also not harassing employees.

Look. If you have the top few percent of people owning everything and abusing people who don't own much simply because they're in a position to exploit desperation, that will mark the end of civility in a society, if not destroy the society period. To not realize this is to show that you are not worthy of discussing these issues meaningfully.

 

You are very correct, bradm98.

Especially when you say, "Libertarians approve of taxes that are used for purposes they believe promote liberty [and economic growth]".

To raise taxes for the sake of raising taxes is foolish. Instead, let the people keep the money they have earned.

They can spend it more wisely than the government ever can. When you give your money to the government, they only waste it and spend it on foolish programs that are near and dear to the hearts of the well-healed politicians in Washington!



Thanks to the ObamaCare law, an astonishing 85 million people will soon be enrolled in Medicaid (or the children's version of it) by 2014 --nearly a third of all Americans below 65. And what about "shared sacrifice"? The Obama health law imposed plenty of sacrifice on seniors and baby boomers: It slashed funding for Medicare by $500 billion over the next decade. It uses those "savings" to pay for two entitlements: a huge increase in Medicaid enrollment and new subsidies for middle-income Americans (families earning up to $88,000 a year) to pay for private health care plans Unfortunately, when push comes to shove, even this amount will not be sufficient to cover all of these millions of new enrollees!

 

The man who was terminated -- it's not his job. He, due to what ever need or desperation you imagine, and unable or unwilling to create a job of his own, asked another man to hire him.

The man who agreed to buy time from this desperate or lazy man, is the one who owns the job. He created it, he's maintaining it -- he owns it. It is quite unreasonable for you to demand he continue maintaining it, continue creating an opportunity for another man, any longer than he chooses to.

If you are truly fed up with people being able to stop employing other people: get off your butt and hire them yourself. Become the caring parent for everyone you feel deserves it. Just don't demand it of others. You don't have that right.

 

Actually we ALL have that right. We have the right to work and do our jobs WITHOUT people having privileges over us who can abuse and harass and take advantage of OUR labor whenever they want and for whatever reasons they want.

The problem that you strict capitalists make is that you assume that big wig employers aren't out to greedily and purely selfishly serve themselves at the expense of everyone else. Granted some of them aren't like that, many of them are and we need to make sure they don't materialize on these desires.

 

That's the last thing I'll ever see from you. This isn't civil discourse and it isn't appropriate for a public forum. This is smut and it won't be tolerated.

Post reported. Poster ignored.

 

You do realize that stringing together slogans and throw away lines like 'corporatism' as though you have discovered a new truth, is simply the work of a political parrot...AWK!