Spaniel. Really.

 

I will just put in that, though my immigrant parents were not wealthy, they managed to get me into the suburbs where I went to school with the competitive, driven children of wealthy people.  This made all the difference. We used to laugh at the state-wide New York State Regents exams. The kids in the inner cities would generally score very low.  Why? Because they were intellectually defecitve?  Because they and/or their parents were lazy? C'mon. 

 

And the last thing I need is to look like I am sucking up the "master runners" of the Swamp, but why did you get personal?

 

 

 

 

Where exactly did I get personal?  You weren't even in the conversation.

People are presented with different environments.  You had an edge up on other kids in your situation, apparently, because your parents took steps to position you for success.  However you personally still had to capitalize on that and make something of it.  I'm sure there were other kids without that advantage who also managed to overcome.  My point was that a) life is not fair and taking from the rich to give to the poor won't fix the underlying problems, and b) the thought that only phsyical labor is somehow worth something is incredibly faulty.  Jeff proved the second point with his dramatic over-reaction to a threat at how is current place in the world would fall out in that equation.

Giving money to those in poor situations won't help if there is not a work-reward relationship -- people just don't appreciate things they did not earn and it will immediately become an entitlement.  Even from the educational perspective, as your personal example demonstrates (and mine too), the role and influence of the parents in setting up their kids for success is more impactful and efficient than trying to make a huge and likely impossible leap in the quality of the schools.  Great schools won't help kids who have a multi-generation legacy of lacking work ethic and accountability and whose whole local society has become apathetic to their situation.

 

 

Skoot, I think O'Reilly is actually more close to "fair and balanced" than you might think.  My wife is a conservative and I end up watching some Fox most nights.  Hannity is a caricature.

 

 

 I think it was the point about being paid to sit around and think.  That was personal and was not necessary to support his point. 

Hannity is a neutered fucking pussy lacking any guts to stand his ground. I'm sorry but I'm not sure where you get your opinion on O'Reilley. His routine is to boil an entire political argument down to a single unpopular incident, confront a guest about it, and take personal shots (ie: "pinhead" etc...) there is no nuanced discussion whatsoever. 

Yes, an army of straw men and a fleet of red herrings. No one argued for "giving money" to anyone. Or for equalizing all wealth relations. The basic point that got everyone upset is that Obama said that the income gap is a threat to democracy and got called a commie for that. I wanted to make the simple point that it's not just communists who see this problem as a threat to democracy.

 

Somehow along the way this got turned into the idea that I want to make all things absolutely equal or should disconnect LABOR from PROPERTY! When in fact it's the connection between labor and property that I want to make!

You reference "wealth redistribution" as a solution. That is pretty clear in my world as you want to take from those that have to give to those that don't. No gray area since wealth is an accumulation of material or capital. By giving something to someone they have not earned or worked to achieve you are disconnecting labor and property.

If I read your comments incorrectly, please explain further or in a different way so I can understand.

You reference "wealth redistribution" as a solution. That is pretty clear in my world as you want to take from those that have to give to those that don't. No gray area since wealth is an accumulation of material or capital. By giving something to someone they have not earned or worked to achieve you are disconnecting labor and property.

 

If I read your comments incorrectly, please explain further or in a different way so I can understand.

Yes, you have read me incorrectly. What's at stake is the question of how capital is related to labor. My view is that capital right now is pretty disconnected from labor-value. In part this disconnect between labor and capital is produced and re-produced by the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Democracy demands that these be linked.

I agree that the devil is in the means--how do these get linked back up. The Soviet experiment showed that government alone cannot do this. I think that present day experience shows the market alone also cannot make this linkage. The challenge is figuring out how it can be done. Calling anyone a communist who attempts to take up the problem is counter-productive.

I wanted to make the simple point that it's not just communists who see this problem as a threat to democracy.  

Then why can't you make the point without some of the other polarizing stuff?  The whole "labor" vs. all other factors is what set me off, and while I can't possible so naive as to think that the income gap is not a threat to democracy, you can't possible so naive as to think there aren't other self-reliant factors involved.  You refer to income redistribution in such a grand way, but what you perceive as income redistribution, I perceive as someone trying to take my family's security that my wife and I have "worked" our whole lives to build.

FWIW, I think you could get better reception from the potential income redistributors by making the point that if this income inequality gap continues, they will ultimately suffer because there won't be enough of a market to buy the goods and services that make up the GDP.  You would be more successful (and IMO more correct) in arguing that it's a long term threat to capitalism rather than democracy. 

1. Income inequality is a threat to democracy.

 

Get used to it.  Life is not fair and never will be.  I for one like having the opportunity to make more than others if I choose to do so.  Many times I choose not to for reasons I won't share here.

 

2. The right to property as articulated by Locke and the founders recognizes this.

 

Don't know enough about Locke to comment.

 

3. Conservatives don't recognize it, and worse invoke fear tactics by crying communism whenever anyone talks about it.

 

Generalized statement.  Not all conservatives are like this, just as not all liberals are not "whack jobs".  I think that from the typical American's (whatever that means) perspective it's all about mistrust of government in applying the funds to where they were intended to go.

4. Spaniel's recent post is a case in point. He calls me a naive UAW guy for stating a simple Lockean principle.

 

Spaniel didn't call you anything.

 

5. Therefore, the attitude expressed by conservatives towards the idea of wealth redistribution is anti-constitutional,  anti-democratic.

 

This is your opinion based on the conclusions you have drawn.  I respect it, but it is nothing more than that.  There's a middle ground somewhere.  You're not there, Jeff.  Neither am I, but I know that's where I need to move to.  I know I will need to make some sacrifices to get there.  I don't mind that as long as the sacrifices are across the board.  Therein lies the rub.

1. Life is not fair. We should work to make it fairer.

2. The argument is simple; I linked to it.

3. If you, like me, disagree with those conservatives who called Obama a communist when he brought up the issue, you are welcome to agree with me and take them to task for their anti-democratic views.

4. Point taken. He called my ideas naive. There is a difference. The point I was making is that he called the idea communist when it is not communist in origin. It's the right to property, a fundamental American right.

5. This is not an argument against my position. Your statement in (3) leads me to believe you agree with me, but don't want to admit it.

That one looks like a big scary clown to me.

Coulrophobe! Go play in your lily-white land of unpainted faces!