Subject:
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Re: Misperceptions of America (Was: Conversation w/ a LEGO Rep)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 29 Aug 1999 22:29:59 GMT
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Viewed:
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2029 times
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Mike,
> > many people making that point. I do remember a lot of people from the USA
> > arguing that basically they didn't want to pay taxes for this because • they
> > didn't want to help the poor anyway. The main justification appeared to • be
> > the rather dubious assumption that if you're poor that must mean you're
> > a scrounger and don't deserve to be helped -
> > something for which no evidence was presented. When I cited possible • reasons
> > why someone might become poor through no fault of their own, everyone
> > went strangely silent! So I
>
> I remember some people coming up with bogus scenarios where people
> might become poor "through no fault of their own" but there aren't
> really that many situations in which one becomes totally broke through
> no fault of his own.
What was bogus about the scenarios?
> What you probably ignored is the basic core of what a lot of us
> believe - what's mine is MINE and what's yours is YOURS. I have no
> right to your stuff, you have no right to my stuff.
No problems with that - I believe that as well.
> Taking my stuff, either by force yourself or with the aid of some
> governmental unit, is theft, pure and simple. I can probably deal
> with a little theft to make sure the roads are ok, the police force is
> well-staffed, ditto the fire department. Theft from me in order to
> inefficiently "help" those who "through no fault of their own" are
> poor is still theft. It's wealth transfer, and you seem to approve of
> it, while a lot of Americans who actually *think* about things don't.
OK - since you 'actually *think* about things' <grin>,
can you explain exactly who the
person, entity or organization is who has determined that what you have
been nominally paid is morally entirely yours, and that none of it
belongs to the community (as represented by the Government)?
Is it just a vague feeling you have
or is there some entity that has the authority to decide this and has
so decided?
I don't know anything about your personal situation, but I do know that
if you are a normal person with a normal job, then you are in that situation
partly due to your own efforts and partly due to the efforts of many others
- especially of the Government - in maintaining a society in which you had
the
appropriate opportunities. You even acknowledge that there are
some areas in which you benefit - such as police force, fire service
etc. yet you still describe the money used to pay for those as 'theft'. By
doing so you are implying that the people who work doing those jobs don't
deserve any money for doing so (because all the money is yours).
IMO, the Government is NOT 'stealing' your money. It is simply reclaiming
the
portion of what you have nominally been paid, which rightfully belongs to
it rather than to you, due to the fact that your getting that salary is only
possible thanks to the myriad things the Government does.
And, yes, making sure that others
have the same opportunities you did is part of that.
The only way you would have a case against that is if you could argue
that the US Government is doing something really stupid or inefficient
with a large percentage of the money. Or that it is taking so much that on
balance it is denying rather than creating opportunities. So far the only
figure I've seen is that someone on lugnet mentioned 27% of quite a
fair salary. That percentage sounded quite reasonable to me.
Simon
http://www.SimonRobinson.com
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