Who knows, this egalitarian ideal may be impeded in the U.S. due to racism...we don't include people of other skin color in our "tribe". This may be true, as Attorney General Eric Holder pointed out, In the U.S., races are largly segregated in private life.
What I find interesting is that people say "its the white man's world". And I say for the most part that it has been and still is. How did this situation come about?
Well, I've heard people claim that caucasians stole, lied, deceived, cheated, and forced their way to the top. Caucasians are also explorers/risk takers, so they ran into other "tribes" to steal from. Europe stole gunpowder. Europe exploited others. Etc... So for the first commenter concerning the "original sin" of saying "this is MINE, not YOURS", are you blaming your ancestors (the avatar picture is a white male)? They left you caucasians in pretty good shape for the last several hundred years. P.S. I am Korean.
For folks who think that "sharing is better": How do you feel about Islamic terrorism? Isn't that a good thing since they are acting in line with your core economic belief? Consider this: Palestine is not as well off as Israel or the United States. A good society would share. Israel and the U.S. refuse to share with us, the Palestinians. As a Palestinean, my best and only option is to take what is rightfully mine by force....violent revolution as Marx recommends. And its ok, since Israel and U.S. are not good societies....they take and refuse to share....therefore our "terror" tactics are justified.
Where do you draw the line? Most folks who call themselves socialists and communists do not draw a line. Most liberals here don't seem to draw a line. And 99% of these folks DO NOT live their life according to their spoken declared values. Otherwise, YOU WOULD donate A LOT OF money to 3rd world countries.
The "holier than thou" argument only works if you actually walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
I'll add what another commenter posted since it is apt, and ironcially, was posted at the same time as my comment:
We are wasting time to ponder whether a "socialist" would ever intervene in a court case between parents and a son to equalize wealth. This isn't legal anywhere and no one is proposing it. I do, however understand what Jeremy is trying to illustrate, that Congress is acting like a court awarding the needy money that belongs to the rich by redistributing tax breaks or spending on social programs. Here are some points that I'd like Jeremy to respond to:
1. Did the same logic come in to play when tax breaks for the wealthy were enacted in Bush's first term? This saved multimillionaires hundreds of thousands per year on taxes, made up by the working class - something liberals call "stovepiping" because wealth has steadily risen to the top. If the right and left are simply using Congress for a big tug-of-war over money, what is the one ultimate "fair" setting for taxation for all?
2. This brings in the more basic considerations of social philosophy. If we have a massive middle class that vastly outnumbers the rich, shouldn't taxation in a democracy be weighted to favor the majority? How much help should the poor get? What are the "basic necessities" that a government must provide?
Will the US be like the third world where peasants beg and die in the streets, or will be be like a feudal capitalist state where the rich give the middle class enough crumbs to keep working? Or will we be like Denmark and other "Socialist" countries that agree by national referendum that every citizen will willingly pay higher taxes so health care, complete college education, child leave, daycare and even month-long vacations are provided for all?
3. What about US specific problems? We are much larger and more diverse then any of the successful Scandinavian socialist nations, we are already is a miserable state of debt that compromises our options, we have a wealthy class that sees no benefit in "sharing" for the public good, even if it's well proven more college subsidies raise our competitiveness and healthcare subsidies save us money down the road. We also have a large "underclass" of people who exist on the dole, collecting handouts when they could be working, just as every nation also does, but percentage wise, these abuses have paled in comparison to government mismanagement and cronyism - in other words white collar corruption.
P.S. - No need to comment at me saying, "what are you doing to help"? Namely, because I don't talk the talk. This is a criticism to those of you who do "talk the talk".
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