Over the next few weeks I will be performing my own little political countdown. It's more for my amusement than anything else, but I also feel that it's a good way to glimpse into the mind of the average Liberal. Such humorous creatures these Liberals, and yet so mysterious. This is my list of the top 20 things Liberals don't believe. We'll say it's in the interest of understanding one another.
"All men are created equal..." - Thomas Jefferson. Number 16 on my list of things Liberals don't believe is Equality.
Common Sense Americans agree with Jefferson. All men are created equal. We are all born into this world with rights. Those rights are equal in status. One man's rights, regardless of circumstance or background, do not supersede another man's rights. And one man's rights cannot be compromised for the benefit of another man's rights. We ARE ALL EQUAL.
Liberals disagree. Granted, if you ask a Liberal if they believe that all men are created equal, well of course they will say yes. But you can't take a Liberal at his word. Look at his actions. When Liberals look at the world they don't see humans with equal rights. No way. Instead, they see victims and victimizers. The victimizers are usually wealthy, successful capitalists. Most of the time the victimizers are white male Westerners. They are almost always Christian and heterosexual. The ultimate victimizer is a white male heterosexual wealthy Christian westerner. These people border on evil in the eyes of Liberals, that is if they actually believed in the existence of evil.
The victims are quite different. Victims are always poor with some exceptions. They are usually a racial minority. More victims are women than men. Homosexuals are basically across the board victims. Sometimes Jews are victims, but that's rare. Muslims, on the other hand, are always victims (see Major Nassif and the Fort Hood massacre).
So Liberals have this dichotomy. Victimizers and Victims. And they believe that victims have more rights than victimizers. Equality is not at play here. Ask your local Liberal: Who has more rights, a white wealthy male Christian, or a poor black female Muslim? The correct answer is neither, they are equal. What would the Liberal say?
Why they believe this I don't know. Maybe it's a political thing. Yes, Liberal politicians raise a lot of money for their campaign by convincing victims that they have more rights than victimizers. And certainly the more victims who believe this goes further in ensuring those politicians retain power. So no wonder the Liberals expand their net of victims constantly. But I'm not sure if money is the motivating factor for your average neighborhood Liberal. I think some of it is guilt, or maybe just the fact that Liberals see a world where human OUTCOMES are unequal and feel that this somehow means that human RIGHTS are therefore unequal. Twisted logic? Yes, but I can't think of another reason why Liberals divide us up into victims and victimizers.
Take me, for example. I am successful. In the eyes of a Liberal, it's because of this demographic side of me that I have fewer rights than someone who doesn't fall into that demographic. And it's up to them, by way of government power, to enforce the imbalance of rights. So, I am forced to surrender a larger percentage of my income to the treasury. The reason for this is because I am more successful, therefore I am not allowed to keep the same percentage of my labor as someone who isn't as successful. And also, that person who isn't as successful has a RIGHT to things like education, healthcare, childcare, retirement, etc. Those things must be funded and so they are funded by people like me. My neighbor's right to healthcare thus supersedes any right I have to the fruits of my own labor. Do any Liberals out there disagree? Of course not.
President Obama has said that anyone who makes over $200,000 a year is doing well enough, and they can afford to pay a higher percentage of taxes. He ignores the fundamental American principle of property and ownership. No. He believes that property rights end at a certain level of income. If you have more property, then you have fewer rights to that property. And if someone is in need, then they have more rights to your property than you do. This is not equality.
The common sense American says that all men are created equal. That we are born equal. We have equal rights. However, equal rights do not translate into equal outcomes. Some people make the most of their rights and succeed. Some become quite wealthy. Others squander their rights and may not be as successful, may not be as wealthy. These are outcomes and they are most definitely not equal, even though we all have equal rights. The common sense American understands that equal rights and equal outcomes are two VERY different things, and if the government attempts to equalize outcomes then it can only do so by violating the rights of some of the citizens, thereby making their rights UNEQUAL in stature. The only way to maintain equal rights is to understand that outcomes will always be unequal, and dependent upon the actions of the individual. That, my friends, is a free society. And that is what happens when you have equal rights.
10 comments:
John,
I was browsing the internet to try to see what the tax rates are in other countries compared to ours, and I found this quote: "As a Canadian, with a tax system that usually puts us about the middle of the range, I am quite content paying my taxes. We receive a large number of services for our tax dollars, which many tend to ignore. For the lucky individuals who do not need to depend on these services, I can only hope their good luck continues. However, we all depend on taxpayer-funded services every day of our lives".
"I have met people who were very bitter about the system, until their luck and good fortune ran out. I don't consider them hypocrites for changing their tune after the fact. They learned that they do have support, perhaps not as much or not as quickly as they would like, but something is there to help most of us. In many countries, it is not".
You are in that lucky category that needs no help--now, but we are all only a broken neck or a csatastrophic illness away from needing support of some kind. We all need a safety net.
We also need to help support the infrastructure that even the wealthy alone can't provide such as freeways, airports, a military, etc. We do need to regulate where our taxes are spent to eliminate waste and fraud and corruption as is found in third world countries where the oligarchs or dicatators rule and nothing works right and where most of the populace lives a sub-standard life.
You said, "The ultimate victimizer is a white male heterosexual wealthy Christian westerner". I think there are worse victimizers in Africa, Cuba, North Korea, etc. of all colors and religions.
Also, you and I are victims of tax-dodgers, dead-beat dads, shop-lifters, criminals in our jails, all running the spectrum from white to ebony black. We are victims of manufacturers of shoddy products, badly processed food, etc. All this costs us, the good citizens.
I love paying taxes here, and obeying traffic and other rules and respecting private property because I prefer living in a country where laws are obeyed and everything that makes our lives comfortable and safe is regulated for our benefit. If it was any other way, we would be a third world country where you never know when the water or electricity will be available, etc.
I don't feel victimized; the poor and lawless are always with us, but here in this country we can live above such problems.
Emilie
Port Orchard, WA
PS - I found that the problem I've had in posting is the fault of my browser.
Em, a few things.
First, I don't oppose taxation. I am not an anarchist, so I fully understand that there are necessary services that need to be funded by the public. Now, I would argue that those services must be in place to serve ALL citizens (court system, police, military, etc) and not just a select few (farm subsidies, foreign aid, special interests, etc). I think that would be a good starting point for spending reform.
Heck, I'm not even opposed to a "safety net" which is what you are talking about. But, I ask you, is Medicare used as a safety net? Is Social Security? No. These things are used by people as their primary source of medical care and retirement. That is not a safety net, that is government dependence. And government dependence is not liberty.
I have disability insurance. I have health insurance. I save money for retirement. I save money for my kids' education. I do this on my own and I work my tail off to do it. A safety net beyond that is acceptable, but how many citizens do what I do, and how many ignore these things and expect the government to pick up the tab?
The point I'm making in the post isn't that I oppose taxation, it is that I believe my rights to private property are protected, and they are equal to everyone else's Constitutional rights. My level of income doesn't diminish my rights to private property, even if another person has a "right" to health care. So if taxes are necessary, and they are; and if all humans have equal rights, and we do; then why shouldn't we have a tax system in which we all pay an equal percentage? Or, even better, a consumption tax that we pay based on what we SPEND and not what we MAKE? Anything like a graduated income tax amounts to nothing less than government-sanctioned discrimination against successful people.
I challenge anyone to justify a graduated income tax while also making an argument that all of us have equal rights.
By the way, this little series I'm doing is a glimpse into the minds of Liberals. You are not a Liberal which is why you're perplexed over some of these things. Yes, there are worse victimizers in the countries you mentioned...BUT, not in the eyes of Liberals. White successful capitalists are vile creatures in their eyes, worse even than the dictators - who themselves are often looked at as victims of the West (see Chavez, Castro, Guevara) and not as brutal dictators.
Liberals hate people like me for several reasons, some of which include my success (I must have stepped on many people to achieve it), my religion (I am a judgmental extremist who hates gay people), my free-thinking (I am dangerous), my values (I am a hypocrite), my military service (I am a war-mongering baby killer); and my political beliefs (I am an insensitive Islamophobic racist). This is what they think of me, and those similar to me.
John,
You know, you say I am not a Liberal but I have both liberal views and Conservative views depending on the issue. I am center right or center left, depending. I know you think that is impossible, but there are many like me.
What I am not is an extreme of either Liberal or Conservative. What you describe as Liberal views about people like yourself to me are the views of the extreme kooky left.
I do feel that for the short term, we need to shore up the middle class and let the tax cuts for the millionaires expire. What good have they done? We have lost so many jobs and the millionaires keep outsourcing jobs to India, etc. despite the tax cuts they said they needed. Maybe $250,000 is too low to be considered wealthy, what with inflation, etc.
And you know, Castro is white, a Spaniard, a member of Old Cuba's ruling class, with a Phd from Columbia U. Chavez definitely has a lot of Native American blood; he was a military officer. Guevara also was like Castro, white, no indigenous blood, the son of a doctor, and I think he also had a medical degree. But Castro and Guevara definitely believed in Marxism. They were considered traitors to their class.
You said, "I ask you, is Medicare used as a safety net? Is Social Security? No. These things are used by people as their primary source of medical care and retirement". Yes, and many older people in the Tea Party movement use those as their primary income and insurance. They feel they paid into it and deserve it. They don't seem to care that is is their children and grandchildren that are paying for it, yet they keep saying they want their "freedom", and don't want anyone "taking their Medicare and Social Security away". They don't realize how hypocriticsal they are.
It is the people on Medicaid and Aid to Needy Families and Children that use the "safety net" in order not to have more homeless and beggars on our streets like other countries have that don't provide a safety net. There is welfare fraud, but most families below the poverty line need some help, and it is usually temporary, though I know some families perpetuate their "need" generation after generation.
Right now the country needs all the revenue it can get, and needs to cut unnecessary spending on costly ineffective programs, and I feel that when the economy improves, then there will be enough revenue created by jobs. We are going through a rough spot now, prosperity is not peeking around the corner yet, but hopefully things will turn around like they have before. I am forever the optimist.
You know, I have seen more "homeless" families on our island lately, not too many, but when I see a father and his family begging on the corner by the Safeway for money for food, I look to see if he is smoking. If so, I just pass on by. He has made the choice to let his children go hungry so he can have his smokes. If I could, I would just buy them some food, but I have also heard that those people are scammers and make more money begging than working people earn, yet they don't declare their "income", much like drug dealers, etc.
Emilie
Port Orchard, WA
Em, you are buying into the class warfare theme. It is a timeless argument that has been sold by the Left for decades.
You say cut taxes for the middle class and raise taxes on the "rich". Again, I ask for the Constitional argument that allows this sort of action. You have ignored my question. The Constitution guarantees a right to property. So how do you justify taking a larger percentage of one man's labor in order to give more to another man? Where in our founding document is such a thing allowed? Where does it say that rights can be violated in order to help those in need?
As for medicare, if you poll the folks who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement, I guarantee you that a vast majority would favor cuts in medicare. Yes, I'm sure you've seen a sound-bite or two on the news of someone saying otherwise, but that's the news. Talk to the actual people and you'll hear a different story. In fact, I'd venture a guess that 90% of us favor cuts in social security and medicare as part of securing our budget and deficit problems.
You're concerned about those who need help. So am I. The difference between us is that you believe the government can help those people. I don't. The government has been waging a "war" on poverty for decades and has made ZERO progress. The path to helping those in need begins at the individual level, with private charity. If people would dip into their pockets and give more to those in need then we can go much further in helping these folks. That's also part of the Tea Party philosophy. Help the needy privately, not publicly.
The problem is that when we are saddled with more and more taxes then it becomes more and more difficult to give.
In human history, there has NEVER been one documented moment where expanding government led to economic progress. NEVER. And there has never been one documented moment where increasing taxes leads to increased revenue. When you transfer money out of the private sector you shrink the economy.
Put it this way, raise taxes on a millionaire who employs 20 people and what will he do? He will not lose money. So to protect his bottom line he will offset that loss in revenue by either cutting his expenses (ie, payroll; ie, jobs) or raising prices on his goods. Who gets hurt by this? So more people end up unemployed, thus in need of government help and the government responds by raising taxes even more to cover the cost of those in need. The cycle repeats.
The easy answer is to cut taxes, put more money in the pockets of business, and they respond by expanding that business to further increase their profits. This leads to more jobs, and less on the government nipple.
Reagan's tax cuts created 20 million jobs. Bush's created 8 million jobs. That's a fact.
More taxes equals a slower economy. This has been proven over and over, time after time. How many times must we make this mistake before we wake up?
Em, you are buying into the class warfare theme. It is a timeless argument that has been sold by the Left for decades.
You say cut taxes for the middle class and raise taxes on the "rich". Again, I ask for the Constitional argument that allows this sort of action. You have ignored my question. The Constitution guarantees a right to property. So how do you justify taking a larger percentage of one man's labor in order to give more to another man? Where in our founding document is such a thing allowed? Where does it say that rights can be violated in order to help those in need?
As for medicare, if you poll the folks who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement, I guarantee you that a vast majority would favor cuts in medicare. Yes, I'm sure you've seen a sound-bite or two on the news of someone saying otherwise, but that's the news. Talk to the actual people and you'll hear a different story. In fact, I'd venture a guess that 90% of us favor cuts in social security and medicare as part of securing our budget and deficit problems.
You're concerned about those who need help. So am I. The difference between us is that you believe the government can help those people. I don't. The government has been waging a "war" on poverty for decades and has made ZERO progress. The path to helping those in need begins at the individual level, with private charity. If people would dip into their pockets and give more to those in need then we can go much further in helping these folks. That's also part of the Tea Party philosophy. Help the needy privately, not publicly.
The problem is that when we are saddled with more and more taxes then it becomes more and more difficult to give.
In human history, there has NEVER been one documented moment where expanding government led to economic progress. NEVER. And there has never been one documented moment where increasing taxes leads to increased revenue. When you transfer money out of the private sector you shrink the economy.
Put it this way, raise taxes on a millionaire who employs 20 people and what will he do? He will not lose money. So to protect his bottom line he will offset that loss in revenue by either cutting his expenses (ie, payroll; ie, jobs) or raising prices on his goods. Who gets hurt by this? So more people end up unemployed, thus in need of government help and the government responds by raising taxes even more to cover the cost of those in need. The cycle repeats.
The easy answer is to cut taxes, put more money in the pockets of business, and they respond by expanding that business to further increase their profits. This leads to more jobs, and less on the government nipple.
Reagan's tax cuts created 20 million jobs. Bush's created 8 million jobs. That's a fact.
More taxes equals a slower economy. This has been proven over and over, time after time. How many times must we make this mistake before we wake up?
Equal rights & equal opportunity is fine with me, but when the govt. tries to make the poor person equal to the rich just because the rich have more money is what upsets me.
You can give $1m to a poor person & they will waste it away. It's equal opportunity that I see is good & no govt. intervention after that.
John, I found this online (from an attorney, wealthy, I presume):
"The Constitution does not guarantee equal rights for every person in the US. The Constitution guaranties certain "basic" rights that the courts have said may be infringed upon by the government if the government has a legitimate reason to do so. (I.e.: no guns on airlines despite our right to bear arms.)"
Certain groups of people receive special treatment because of race, gender, and/or age. For the government to interfere with the rights of the people comprising those groups, the government must show a very strong reason, otherwise the government's action is unconstitutional. These groups are called "Protected Classes."
Being wealthy does not make one a Protected Class and the government can treat us differently than those who are not wealthy. It can collect taxes (Social Security is a tax) from us and then redistribute the money collected to assist those who did not have the same opportunities to save as much as we do for retirement".
I cannot deduct the interest of my student loans from my taxes like most people can, I could soon lose my ability to defer taxes on income diverted to my 401(k), and I will not receive the same Social Security benefits as someone who earns far less than me. It's all legal. I don't like that, but it is legal under the Constitution".
I don't buy into class warfare like the commies do. I just don't want this country to sink to the level of third world countries who have only two classes--the obscenely rich 2%, and the impoverished other 98%.
This country has a shrinking middle class, and where is the imnproved economy and more jobs that the tax cuts for the rich were supposed to provide? Our industries are less and less "American" and more and more "global", all sending jobs overseas for the cheap labor or hiring illegals here for the same reason.
The Constitution does not spell out rights in black and white. We have the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but it doesn't say that there is no guarantee of equal results. It is up to Congress and the Courts to pass laws to protect certain classes.
I found that phrase "there is no guarantee of equal results" in Glann Beck's "9 Principles, 12 Values", and he quotes Thomas Jefferson saying that "Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation if life which he thinks most likely to give him comfortable subsistence". That is what the Constitution gives me---the right to choose a vocation and succeed in it IF I have the aptitude for it. I can't be a doctor like you---I don't have the aptitude for the hard sciences.
My folks didn't want me to have to work so hard at manual stuff like they did; they wanted me to work in an office or be a nun; I chose the office, rejected Catholicism and all organized religion (it's a free country). All of my generation moved into the middle class.
I found somethings else online:
http://usconservatives.about.com/od/conservativepolitics101/bb/Contypes.htm
According to the article, I am a "crunchy conservative", one who "stands outside the conservative mainstream--focuses on family oriented conservative concepts---avoiding materialism--as mistrustful of big business as of big government".
Middle class is good; it is what has made us Americans what we are; most people want to work up to that, one house, a car, a job.
Despite tax breaks for the rich, we are seeing homeless families, no jobs, no homes, maybe a ratty car. Sad.
Emilie
Port Orchard, WA
Em, I heard the CEO of Intel on CNN business the other day. He said when you factor in taxes and high labor costs in America, it costs his company an additional $1 billion to open a factory in America compared to China. You can't blame businesses for going overseas. That's the natural consequence of oppressive taxation, and irrational labor unions. GM was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy because of union labor. You may feel better about blaming "big business", but those people are in business to make money, not keep people employed. If the government has a responsibility in this, it's to create an environment that fosters business growth and encourages business to build here rather than there. You think these businesses WANT to move to China? No. It's much easier logistically to be here with the consumer. But it's too expensive to be here. That's the unfortunate truth behind it all.
Your attorney friend is plain WRONG about the Constitution, and it is typical "living, breathing" interpretation of the Constitution. Do you honestly believe that our founders wrote the Constitution and founded this nation on the principle that some "classes" should be protected more than other classes? That is one of the things that they rebelled against in the Revolutionary War?
You don't need an attorney to interpret that document, just read it. It was written for the people. NO WHERE does it say we must protect certain classes. And YES, it absolutely does spell out certain rights that we all have, and the 14th Amendment clearly states that all of our rights are equal. Chopping us into "classes" and protecting those rights unequally according to those classes is one of the most unAmerican things I've ever heard. That is precisely what Dr King spoke out against. When a government starts deciding whose rights are more important than others, then you've entered some very dangerous ground and you've ceased to be the Republic that our founders intended. Our rights are granted from God, madame, NOT from our lawmakers. So our lawmakers do not have the authority to grant those rights or change them according to one's "class". James Madison would be appalled at this attorney's interpretation of our founding document.
Your metaphor about guns on planes is misplaced. We ALL have the right to own a gun. NO ONE has the right to bring a gun on a plane. That is called equal protection. A more accurate metaphor - according to your argument - would be to say that even though we all have the right to own a gun, certain "classes" like the "poor" are allowed to carry a gun on an airplane. The rich aren't allowed to do that. That would be unequal protection, which is what you are advocating.
We are NOT guaranteed equal results. And that's because we live in freedom. We each have the freedom to achieve greatness, to achieve wealth, or to fail at this and live in poverty. Some of us may have a more difficult path to it, but we are free to pursue it regardless. Whether or not we achieve it is dependent upon US AS INDIVIDUALS. The government can't do it for us, and when they try it takes away a little of our dignity and humanity. But even those who don't achieve wealth are still among the wealthiest people in the world because of our capitalist system. Here, we define "poverty" as someone making less than $24,000 a year. In most countries, the average income is one tenth of that. Our poorest citizens would live like kings in those countries.
The government can't make the poor to be wealthy. It can only make the wealthy to be poor.
Churchill said it best: "The great vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The great virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."
Which of these would you choose?
John,
The metaphor about guns on planes not allowed although we have the right to bear arms is not mine--it is the attorney's. The first four paragraphs are the attorney's comments. My comments start with the fifth paragraph. I have no idea who he is; he did not identify himself other than to state he was a lawyer on that blog.
The point he made, as I see it, is that even if the Constitution gives us equal rights, under that same Constitution there have developed Protected Classes such as those in lower tax brackets than his. He doesn't like it, he says, but it all is legal under the Constitution. We do have scaled tax brackets. Somebody chopped us into classes or "brackets". That still does not make results equal. The rich remain rich, and the poor just as poor. By wealthy, I think of those who are millionaires or billionaires. I think the threshold of $250,000 is too low. Many professionals and small business owners and managers make that and more, and I don't consider one wealthy until they are in the 6 or 7 digit category.
I think what the Atty. was saying is that the Constitution in some cases does create equal results: for minorities, for women, for the elderly, for the blind, lame, etc. Those can no longer be descriminated against, but he is saying that the wealthy are being discriminated against, and that it is currently legal.
I guess we have to agree to disagree on the matter of equal results. I don't think it can or should be attained, but the tax brackets are an attempt at it, and we have to live with it for now.
I do agree that even the poorest of our poor live maybe not like kings compared to the poor elsewhere, but they are not going to die of hunger or disease or wear rags. We have so many illegals here because instead of $5.00 a day for their labor, they can get $5.00 an hour, and that is what those who hire them here are willing to pay. They won't pay the $15.00 an hour that Americans demand. If you are going to be poor, better to be poor in the US.
You ask if I would choose capitalism over socialism. Of course I would choose capitalism, but I want regulations on it to keep it from being the way it was in the 19th C and early 20th C. No more robber barons, child labor, 16 hour days, all those evils.
I think we are headed to a system like in some European countries, where there is capitalism and socialism both. They are not communist or faith-ruled. Communism is un-Godly, not allowing ANY religion, and theocracies force one into the state religion. Americans and other "western" societies don't want either. I think of Sweden, the Netherlands, etc. They don't seem to be bad countries. I don't see Swedish and Dutch hordes coming over here.
Even Lenin was disappointed with Socialism. He told Amand Hammer, shortly after Communism took power, "It is not working".
The "Crunchy" Con,
Emilie,
Port Orchard, WA
"I guess we have to agree to disagree on the matter of equal results."
Actually, I believe we agree on this. There is no guarantee of equal results, only equal opportunity. Any attempt to bring about equal results will trample someone's rights.
Now, we can agree to disagree about a graduated income tax, where one group of citizens is deprived a larger percentage of their property than another group. I call it violation of rights.
However, I can't allow that particular attorney to say things about the Constitution that aren't true. No where in that document does it mention the need to protect the rights of certain classes at the expense of others.
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