Makes the extremely irrational assumption that everyone will be able to be succesful. Also a horrible idea to not regulate business - that would eliminate the middle class and go back to a few very rich and huge numbers of poor working in unsafe conditions. Big difference is that there is no god, but the government can certainly make things better. Look how much better things are in Western Europe than in the US and the policies there are certainly more socialistic.

The rich are still going to try to make more money even though they won't make as much paying more income tax (I would eliminate sales tax as it is a very regressive tax. ) I would also instantly confiscate via the government any business that tried moving overseas without compensating the owner. Any US owned business that manufactured overseas would pay a 500% tariff. I agree on pollution and we do need more public funding of education (and to fix the education system to actually teach critical thinking and science instead of focusing so much on rote memorization. )

Many fans tend to know that I address issues in such a manner to induce assumptions about where I stand, when those assumptions are false, so that I may pounce on such a position later.  At times I don't address the assumption, I merely pick apart a small piece of it as I did in my first post in this thread.  Some people have told me that this method of mine drives people away, lowering our effectiveness because it is human nature to make those assumptions.  My common response is that I don't care, I'd rather be a small group of great thinkers than a large group of so-so ones.  I feel as if a few of those assumptions have been made by you (EXC) in the last few weeks on this board in regards to politics particularly.  It is because I've generally liked reading your posts and that some supporters think I should be more lenient with logical traps I create on those that we should be aligned with that I've decided to come back to this post and address some issues, as an open book.  I would note however that the proper means of ascertaining accurate answers is not to assert a position, but to ask the right questions and I feel you've done the former in this case.  I recognize of course that you're not specifically talking about me, however you're talking about this site, the members, atheists in general, all the while seemingly excluding yourself from that pool. 

I dislike the idea that the political ideals of are incorporated into the religious and philosophical ideals as you seem to be doing here.  You know CapnOAwesome on youtube is a Republican and was supportive of Ron Paul this year?  Do you know that Kelly, Rook, Mike, and myself (the original 4 hosts of RRS and the founding members) are all libertarian? 

Your arguments follow the same fate, if not more so.  Transforming our government towards libertarian ideals would crumble large portions of our infrastructure.  Such change would take an excessive amount of time, that all 4 "leaders" of RRS support, condone, and endorse.  Your post seems to avoid our actual views here.  In fact many of the people who would vote democrat in the last few elections, and will be doing so in the upcoming one support those libertarian ideals as well. 

I don't want anything to do with those who would make broad sweeping generalizations about the atheist community, or any "movement" within it, especially if those views are mostly assumptions, and exclude ones own position.  If you notice the anti-McCain thread I started had nothing pro-Obama in it or listed by a "leader" of RRS.  The views of the community are mixed, of which you (up til now) are a part of.  You are however free to leave.

That's one of many keys.  There are others, the battle against religion will be fought on many fronts at once.  Including making anti-McCain threads and seeing how many people will assume that equals pro-Obama.  It's ironic how much of your own argument could be turned back towards you.

As far as I'm concerned you are the first person to just have made the two go hand in hand.  In fact if you notice the only politics forum on our site is:

Discuss politics, ANY politics! RRS has no political affiliation, but we do lean Libertarian.

Furthermore if you are looking for a general consensus amongst the "rational thinking people" being referred to as atheists, it is you who is the wishful thinker, it is you who is not adhering to the facts.  Have you heard the saying that uniting atheists is like herding cats?  With 10 years of experience in attempts to unite atheists there isn't a single issue that I can think of that we all agree on.  In fact, that is why this site was formed.  Atheists can't even agree on how to address religion or religious people.  This site was founded to unite one type of atheist, the atheist that doesn't mind blasphemy, confronting religion, participating in public displays of non-belief, and engaging in what would be considered a more strident form of non-belief. 

The only thing one atheist must have in common with another is a lack of belief in a god, and often times they won't even agree with how to classify that lack of belief.  Some say the know for sure god doesn't exist, some say the question is unanswerable, some say they are simply without belief, and on and on.

Likely not considering the leanings of it's owners/leaders/founders aren't interested in such a position.  Furthermore Matt Shizzle and D-Cubed and the very small handful of others who have been arguing this with you (less than 10 people) are no more a part of this community than you are.  Should you choose to stay you have the ability to impact that direction or course, but arguments such as the ones you are making here are less likely to sway than you may think.  We have over 10,000 registered members and less than 10 are currently having this argument with you, how many people exactly do you think makes up the community?  And do you really need all 10,000 of them to agree on politics in order to strike vigorously at religion?  If so, this isn't the place for you, and I wish you well.

And libertarians wish that by keeping all the money in the peoples hands and simply spending money on education (and they don't even agree on education) that people will rise up and accomplish more.  They also wish/hope that those who are unable to accomplish more are not a drag on resources ignoring that they will be.  I could go on and on, there is plenty of wishful thinking in all camps.  Some of us refer to it as optimism, I believe the Obama crowd calls it "hope."  And I'm speaking as a libertarian who sees the problems within, just as I can speak on the problems I've seen with democrats when I've pushed the vote democrat button.

And libertarians just don't care, right?  We've had discussions at length with our most staunch libertarian co-host Mike who has essentially illustrated that position for us.  Let the weak be weak, they deserve it for not being stronger, and don't deserve bail outs unless individuals want to help.  Many of us can see the advantages to such a system, we understand how it would work, the question is can you see the disadvantages or would you prefer to dogmatically adhere to such principles wishfully thinking that it'll all work out for the better?  (here, have a mirror, those are your arguments staring you in the face)

No, I wont.  I agree oftentimes handouts make the problem worse.  Now will you change your argument?  Or adhere dogmatically to it?  Or maybe I'll be lucky enough to not be deemed a scary religious socialist.

Ok so socialists that don't agree with libertarian principles demonize the libs.  Yet you calling socialist values irrational, destructive, and leading towards right wing Christian fundamentalism is what?  Shall I grab the mirror for you again?

I double dog dare you to start a website in which you manage to get all atheists to agree on all of those ideals exactly as stated so that you can "see a point in having anything something to do with the so-called rational atheism movement."

I don't think that he did. If he thinks anything along the lines of how I do, then he accepts that some people won't be successful. It is not the governments job to make everyone successful. I think we should allow failure and allow bad consequences to happen when people make poor decisions.

I do NOT want European socialism exported to the US. I think that things are better here (economically speaking). If anything I would want lower taxes and lower government spending.

*Shiver* That one gave me the chills. You really want the government to prevent businesses from shopping around and moving some divisions overseas? I am glad that low skill jobs are leaving our country. I would rather work in the service sector than work in a factory. If a business wants to move a factory overseas then let them. Let American's work skilled jobs and let people in third world countries make shoes all day. I doubt you want to work making shoes or plastic toys all day.

That would drive the price of manufactured goods through the roof. Our workers cost too much and a 500% tariff would stop us from saving money elsewhere. How is artificially raising prices supposed to help us? And here I was thinking that raising prices only hurt the poor....

I don't think funding is the problem. Some school districts with high funding per student are much worse than other poorer districts. I think we waste too much money on administrators, sports (my old high school recently built a two million dollar football field) and a bloated state bureaucracy. Schools should be well funded, but wasting the funds gives us a bad educational system. Also the teachers' union does everything in its power to keep incompetent teachers from being fired.

I hope this isn't derailing the thread or coming off as me being too angry. No offense MattShizzle, but it seems that we happen to have opposing views on economics.

I have to disagree. I have met atheists of all political leanings. One of my roommates thought that I was very far right wing until I explained to him what libertarianism is. Some of us will be left wing, others right, others populist, others centrist and others libertarian. I think most of the atheists that I have met are leftists, but that is because I keep meeting them at my university. Even if atheists as a whole lean left, you can non-leftist atheists. I know that I am.

As for the neomarxism comment I just don't get that. You might be able to find a few people on this site that really are neomarxists, but then you could find a few who are neoliberals just as easily. I think of myself as neoliberal in the economic policies that I support. Perhaps instead of generalizing about this whole community you could only argue against the few members who are neomarxists. Just my opinion here: you could start a thread about the merits of economic deregulation and why you think we should dismantle the welfare state. Then you could argue against only those who are actually against your economic policies, rather than hitting us all with your broad brush of neomarxism and far left politics.

Socialist countries tend to be the least religious.  It may have to do with socialist countries having the highest standard of living.  Religion breeds in desperation, that's why you have missionaries cooing all over natural disasters, school shootings, where ever there is pain, misery, poverty, hopelessness, etc.  Since socialist countries provide the basic needs for all citizens there is less of the above.

The system which EXC proposes has already been tried and has met with disasterous results.  During the Industrial Revolution the gap between the wealthy and poor led to economic ruin since so much wealth was concentrated in the hands of the few.  As a result the best social networks, churches and unions competed for public attention.  Thanks to the plutocracy that naturally arises with economic inequality the corporate interests fought against the unions, often bringing out the National Guard to slaughter strikers.  It wasn't until the socialist New Deal policies of Roosevelt did the Middle Class get established and economic prosperity arose for all classes.  The best thing to remove the Middle Class, what the neo-liberal bent of the Republican party has been doing since Reagan, is to remove regulations (S&L, Bear Stearns, Enron, etc), bust unions, cut social spending, cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and then we'll have a nation where corporate interests and religious nationalism are the law of the land.

In modern times corporatism has had it's play in Pinochet's Chile, and most recently American occupied Iraq.  Previous incarnations were removed in the 40s, the exception being Spain.  After Spain's transition to socialism the Church lost much of its political power.

Iraq, hasn't exactly become a secular land after the socialist government was toppled, quite the opposite.  Organized religion has come in to fill the power vacuum.  The same thing happened in the South after the Civil War.  With the government system having fallen apart the robber barons and organized religion gained more power.  Contrary to the claims of lack of regulation the freed slaves became poor sharecroppers thanks to the lax enforcement of civil liberties and the North's reluctance to prohibit Jim Crow laws.

No matter how many catch phrases one mentions a failed economic/social system will still be a failed system.  Countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, etc. have been complete successes while any implementation of a neo-con theme park has met with severe failure. 

Probably the best thing to do to prevent this would be to return to higher tariffs.  If a car is built in China and sent to America they have to pay a 2% tariff.  However, if an American car is shipped to China we have to pay a 20% tariff.  Such inequalities encourage jobs to leave.  Tariffs are meant to protect jobs, technology, and wealth in a nation's borders.  Before the 2nd World War the majority of taxes were consumption taxes, i.e. tariffs.  Labor wasn't taxed.  It seems odd that we are taxed on our labor but it makes little difference on how much we consume (exception being sales taxes).  So the more you work the more you get taxed but if you don't work and spend you pay less than the person who works.  Add it further to dividends.  When I make money selling a stock I pay a 15% tax, but if I were to work for the same amount I'd be taxed 35%.  It's a tax cut for the rich since they are so wealthy they don't need to work and earn their revenue from dividends.  Those who choose to work get a social security cut off at $90,000 a year.

Back in the founding of our nation Thomas Paine argued for such things as social security, a progressive income tax, a nationalized education system, etc.  But when you have a government where the only people running the nation are those who have wealth (Senators were appointed rather than voted in by the people), then the plutocracy tends to favor its own interests.  Not that different from the Democratic Greek states where only 10% of the population were permitted to vote and hold office.

Anyway, to get back on the subject we see the same thing in America.  With corporate interests and the wealthy not only having a lot of influence in politics but it takes a wealthy person to get elected (perhaps Bernie Sanders is the only non-millionaire in the Senate, McCain is worth over $100 million), it isn't surprising legislation is based to enrich themselves.  So what if some working people lose their middle class manufacturing jobs, they don't make enough to have a voice.  But the non-wealthy have larger numbers so all it takes is getting enough people to vote for their economic interests, and not on pointless issues like flag pins, to make a difference.

Yeah yeah..capitalism rah rah rah.

If socialism is so irrational, explain to me why the quality of life in left leaning countries always outranks the US.

http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/

I seriously can't be bothered to explain to you why turning to the corporate market with every single problem simply doesn't work and how you are living in a fairy tale. Luckily it looks like Hamby is interested in pulling you head out of your ass.

Both capitalism and socialism, if taken to their theoretical extremes, are stupid and untenable.  There must be personal incentive in the workplace, and that entails elements of capitalism.  There must be support structures from a centralized government, and that entails elements of socialism.

As an example, take Norway.  It's got the second highest HD ranking, and it is identified as a mixed economy, with both a free market system and substantial government controlled sectors.  Also notice that Norway's standard of living is particularly high because of its ratio of natural resources to population.  It is an incredibly resource rich country for its size.

Australia?  Mixed economy.  Canada?  Mixed.  I could go on, but the trend is obvious.  In countries where free market principles are allowed to operate within a controlled environment, and public health and welfare is controlled by the government, there are high standards of living.  As I mentioned earlier, I advocate a mixed government with both free market and socialist elements.

The last radical libertarian I argued with was a KFC dishwasher who lived in a trailer. I wonder why such meager people, who could probably do with some help themselves, are so ready to sell us out to the wolves. If they had their way, "society" would consist of bearded mountain men casting suspicious glances at each other as they squat over buckets.

If you ever look at statistics, the income gap is way lower in more civilized countries like those in Western Europe. The only place you see it as high or higher than the US is in the 3rd world.

EXC, tell me, what is the self-sufficiency? Is it an ability to pillage a trash bins, to eat stray cats, dogs and pigeons, and to rob people, in order to survive? If yes, then it might work.
If it's not exactly as you imagine, note, that there is a thing in the world called money. It makes people dependent on who gives it, for what, in what amount, how often, and so on. It is the only way how to stay alive for us. Maybe you should define where a natural interaction with society ends, and where a dependence begins.

Next, your statements are really quite broad, as people already noticed. What do you have against socialism? The negative connotation of marxism, engelism, socialism, communism and so on is based on the way how were these ideas realized. I personally view this negativity mainly as a personal power lust of Lenin, Stalin, and their countless henchmen in the Party. It was just another way of having a total power, not unlike A. Hitler. "There is more of what connects us with communism, than what divides us" he said.

My politic orientation test was left-wing libertarian, similarly like Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. But to be precise, I want both economies mixed, capitalism and socialism to work together. (similarly like in Sweden or Norway)  The socialistic principles are here to help the poor, while an allied, cooperating capitalistic principle will help these out of state's care to do business and maybe get rich. These who will get rich will be able to pay much greater taxes for state's social politics, and these who not, will be again clients of very hospitable social security system, so no harm will be done to them.
I want a food+water, housing, education and free healthcare as universal rights.  This is what I mean by a social security system, and to accomplish this is a primary purpose of any government. It may seem an ordinary thing, but no state in the world has it. Not even one.

This of course can't be built overnight, (in fact, it would need a great transformation of all aspects of our lives, which is, I think, inevitable anyway) but if such a system will exist, then it will be irrelevant what religion, philosophy, politic orientation, nationality, sexual orientation, or a complexion color we have, because none of this will be a threat to our well-being. And those, who exploits these differences and  conflicts, will lose power.

(OK I had read all posts in this thread and I rather agree)

Because the same ultra rich are the ones making the laws.  My hope is that Obama doesn't fall into the rich boy crowd.  He's a millionaire after selling a couple of books but because of those sales he was finally able to pay off his student loans.  Guys like him and Bill Clinton who spent some time living a middle or working class life are more sympathetic and pass laws that can benefit us peasant folk.  I doubt I'll be seeing anything from people who live in unearned extreme wealth (Bush Jr., McCain).

All this talk wants me to read Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas.  Living in Kansas I should have read it by now.

The last time we had an income gap this big, we were hit by the Great Depression.

The problem, as I see it, is that concentrating economic power among a relatively few people (say, the top 2% of the population) gives that 2% more political power. As we see with stupid laws like the DMCA and Bush's tax cuts, moneyed interests are able to influence political decisions to a much greater degree than us poor plebeians.

Right now, there should be two top economic priorities: levelling the income gap, and reducing the national debt.  Unless these two issues are addressed, our economic troubles are going to get worse. I don't know if it'll be Great Depression bad, but it'll be bad.

Levelling the income gap will certainly help reduce one of EXC's problems, the number of poeple receiving government assistance. (In spite of "common knowledge," most people on welfare don't want to be on welfare, and remain on welfare for much less than their available 60 months.)

I'm definitely more a liberal than a libertarian, in that I believe the government's primary role should be to run common societal infrastructure, like roads, health care, coordination of communications infrastructure, etc, and to provide a safety net for those who fall, for whatever reason. Our limited welfare system seems to be working fairly well (60 months is your lifetime available welfare). Our biggest problem in this area is the lack of universal health care. (And before anybody starts crying about the cost -- do you know how much the US spends on health care? I mean everything, from government-funded programs to insurance to co-pays and deductibles. It's as much or more per-capita than most universal-health-care programs, and we only cover about 80%-85% of our population. And for those with poor insurance [a good-size chunk of that 85%], the wait times and access to care is is bad or worse than the universal health care systems.)

Like most libertarians, I firmly believe in maximizing personal liberties. (I think corporations are not people, and as such, should be regulated to fuck and back. I like Hamby's idea of graduated taxation to give tax incentives to start your own business, coupled with EXC's idea of taxing environmental damage.) There should be no such thing as a victimless crime. The government (including the President) should be open to investigation at any point. There should be no such thing as a hidden law. (Certain TSA regulations have the force of law, but are not available for inspection, so there's no way to know beforehand if you are breaking them.)

I believe individuals have a responsibility to society -- after all, our standard of living is available only because of society. As others have pointed out, "ownership" is not a rational idea in and of itself, and is there only because of social agreements.

Agreeing to help others in exchange for the guarantee of ownership is a small price to pay, if you ask me.

I'm in total agreement with you. When I used the word socialism, I was using it in the Fox News "fucking commie Canada" "nanny government left" meaning, which everywhere else in the world means a mix of socialism and capitalism. I should have said social democratic.

The limit is 60 months, lifetime.

My wife was a welfare-to-work case manager, and later, regional directory of the welfare to work program in Southeast Alaska. Welfare recipients are required to do "work-related activities." The case worker attempts to get the welfare recipient into the work force as soon as possible.

It's not at all like the common misconception of "welfare."

Ha ha.  To be fair though, Hannity is way, way worse than Limbaugh.  As far as being violently clueless, he's right up there with O'Reilly in my opinion.  A tidbit concerning the looming energy crisis from a month or 2 ago goes something like this:  "America was able to produce enough arms to last through WWII.  Are you telling me that America is now unable to get through this little energy crisis?"

I was just like, dude...arms and energy are not the same thing at all. 

I consider myself to be a conservative (not a Republican, a Libertarian), but these AM talk radio guys are so hilariously clueless on so many fronts.  Rush just signed an 8 year, $400 million contract with IEB.  That's twice as much as A-Rod makes in a season.  How could someone with that kind of wealth possibly understand his audience, and in turn be understood by his audience?  There is no energy crisis for Rush.  There is no recession.  The guy could literally light his cigars with rolls of $100 bills and it wouldn't even be a drop in the ocean. 

The same goes for Beck, though to a lesser degree.  I mean, he's a fairly enjoyable guy to listen to, if only in a comedic sense, but he's pulling in several million a year himself, and is generally pretty ignorant of what it means to be an average American with average problems.   

But none of it makes me quite as sick as the ad spot that Hannity does for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.  "Head on down to Ruth's Chris and have dinner for 2 for ONLY $89!"  Yeah Sean, you're reaaaally appealing to your blue collar base here.  Dick. 

Just enough money to survive? What do you suggest someone does who's industry evaporates and they require training to get back into the workforce? Or someone who has kids that require medical care? Or that become disabled and can't get back into the workforce?

Who cares if there are a small percentage of freeloading slackers? That really an issue of generational poverty, not welfare.

There's a very simple, fundamental problem with the idea of giving people less than they need to get by to encourage them to get off welfare.  It doesn't work.

1) Remember, please, that human society is a very complicated superorganism.  It's the same kind of thing as an ant colony or beehive, only with a much more flexible division of labor and system of stratification.

2) Sociobiologists are fast becoming aware that slackers are part of a superorganism.  It's not a matter of flawed individuals.  It's a matter of the boundaries of a system.  Consider that in an ant colony, there is a small percentage that do very little work compared to the others, and reap full rewards of being part of the system.  Curiously, when researchers identify and remove only the slacker ants, the same percentage of ants relative to the new size of the colony turn into slackers.  Judging by records of human societies, I see no reason to doubt that the same dynamic operates in the human superorganism.

3) In other words, there will ALWAYS be a fringe element who will take advantage of a welfare system.  This is NOT a justification for not having the system in place.  As many have pointed out, most of the people who go on welfare are not bums.  They are people with families who had bad luck, a bad economy, illness, injury, or some combination.  Again, the VAST MAJORITY of people on welfare are trying to get off welfare.

4) The reason people want to get off of welfare is that welfare is really, really not sexy.  People, by virtue of their nature, want better status than their neighbors.  That's because the hot women prefer to fuck high status men, and because it takes money for a woman to be as hot as she can be.  Gym memberships, makeup, hundred and fifty dollar haircuts, designer clothes and jewelry are expensive.

5) Because of simple mathematics, GETTING AHEAD INVOLVES HAVING MORE THAN YOU NEED.

6) Let me repeat that.  It's important.  THE FREAKING DEFINITION OF GETTING AHEAD IS HAVING MORE THAN YOU NEED.

7) If you want someone to get off the welfare system, you need to let them save money.  There are already programs in place to encourage, and in some cases, mandate savings.  At the local homeless shelter in my city, residents are required to meet with a financial planner and budget so that they are able to save something, even if it's only a few dollars.  Their savings accounts are managed for them, and they are not allowed to stay at the shelter unless they follow these guidelines.

This is really, really simple.  In order for welfare to be effective, it has to be the equivalent of a living wage.  Period.  It's important to include incentives to get back into the workforce, but they need to be actual incentives, not punishment for not being able to make it with not enough money to make it.

  Again thankyou for fixing this issue for me !!

There are resources for much of that. There are displaced worker programs, child health care programs, and so on. Much of the problem is that the government has privatized much of it. People have to dig around to find out who is managing the programs, how to contact them, and then figure out how to get through the corporate red tape. And since the corp insists on a profit, not as much of the money makes it to the people who need it most.

There are resources for much of that, but not enough.

In my wife's experience (and in listening to her), most people really don't like to be dependent on the state. Both as a case worker and later as regional director, she was all in her clients' private lives. She and her case workers were constantly meeting with the clients, going over their finances, working with them to plan a way out of welfare, helping them get funds for education and training and whatnot. Some of the clients appreciated it; they were the ones who wanted to get back on their feet from a sense of self-worth and pride. Some of the clients did not appreciate it; they were the ones who wanted to get back on their feet just to get their privacy back.

The "generational poverty" thing is a big, big problem. Welfare can help people survive, but it's gonna take a lot to reform the system to the point where poverty is no longer institutionalized. I suspect that's where Matt's coming from.

No, there is a big difference. Wish thinking is believing that the universe could operate under laws/rules that science has demonstrated do not exist. Theists wish there was a sugar-daddy god that answered all their requests, so they pray. This is wish thinking because the universe does not operate this way.

I've argued with leftist socialists enough to know that they just ignore the reality of how economics and human nature works. They basically propose these ideas about welfare and business mandates to make themselves feel like they care, when in reality they are doing nothing. It a drug that makes them feel good, makes them feel morally superior to people like me. Basically they want to put the burden of helping others on the rich, government and businesses instead of themselves. Pretty much like prayer, a way to make yourself think your helping when you're doing nothing.

For example, this video about McCain supposedly preventing people from getting Birth Control assumes that health insurance providers can somehow provide free services to the poor without passing these costs onto the consumer. Now the truth is McCain an other economic conservatives just don't believe the government should mandate what a services an insurance company company should offer. Now to go along with this video, one must ignore the economic laws.

1. The cost of mandating services will be passed onto the consumers. We already have a huge crisis of affordable health insurance. They will either pass the cost onto consumers or they will go out of business.

2. When a health insurance company provides birth control to it's customer, it is then acting a middleman in the chain of product delivery. This will only increases cost since they must manage inventory and do paperwork. It is more economical to have the customer buy the product wholesale from the providers.

It may make you feel that you care by supporting mandates, but economics simple does not operate this way. You hold these believes about how government should operate, yet you don't explain how mandates just don't get passed along to the consumers.

Another irrational idea is that an economy can survive that rewards people based upon how hard they work rather than the value of the products and services to consumers. If success is not rewarded, the economy fails.

The government is broke and highly in debt. The government is unable to fund infrastructure programs. This is why private investors are proposing public works projects where they can get a return on investment from user fees. They technology exists now so that all services can be pay as you go.

If you tax the rich and businesses excessively, they will just stop investing and hiring people to work for them. They will take their money and hide it. But this reality is just ignored by all the "rational" leftists. The leftist just keep proposing higher taxes ignoring the reality of how this will change behavior.

There is nothing in nature that suggests a society could exist where one group of people could support another group. Relationship are either symbiotic or adversarial. Socialism is a recipe for class warfare. It doesn't matter that you "feel" that it's just right to help the poor, this is how the world works.

I am not a libertarian. A libertarian put liberty above all else. Jefferson put it best LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSIUT OF HAPININESS. You can't have liberty without life, which is why and individual and societies high priority must be they obtaining the elements needed for survival(food, clothing, shelter, essential medical services). This is why self sufficiency is a higher priority than liberty.

If we are to have a government that helps it's less fortunate citizens, it must be base upon what works and what benefits all members of society. When we have an education system that enables citizens to be self sufficient, everyone benefits and the system can sustain itself. There really is not much else governemts can do that would be a win for everyone.

So I firmly disagree that you can have a rational community with numerous people that have far left economic and socialist ideas. They simply ignore the reality of how the world operates. Politics operates in a very similar way to religion and is just as subject to irrational dogma.

The poor won't be doing that. They have no organization and no will to 'take what they rightfully deserve.' Every poor person that I know would never kill a rich person. They would rather squander all their efforts and money on cheap entertainments. Having the poor rebel is a rare thing in history. It is common for an upper class to maintain control for centuries before the abused poor do anything about it. We keep our poor to well preoccupied for them to make any kind of a stand. It is sad that I can off the top of my head think of five people who make less than $10/hour who spend more money on entertainment than I do. If income disparity grew in the US we would not see a blood bath. We would see more people like that: no will to achieve more and no effort put into anything but their time-filling entertainments.

That being said I do not endorse killing or excessively taxing the rich. I would rather slash funding to needless government bureaucracies than jack up taxes.

I goofed in my last #41 post , over 500 billion, not trillion, on the Iraq war, which doesn't include Afghanistan etc.   Hey but ?,

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0310/p16s01-wmgn.html?page=1

_________________________________________________

    I am for competitive markets, and more socialization where needed,  but allowing mega rich corporations and dynasties (disguised monopolies) doesn't promote competition, it diminishes it.

Hamby, I'd sure like to hear you focus a bit more directly on this economic quagmire.