Who is the wealth being redistributed to?

[tniassaint.livejournal.com]

I find it astounding that so many people seem to buy into this teet suckling mythology. Yes, there are people on public assistance. No - the overwhelming majority of those people do not live large, get wealthy or even WANT to be on it...  The ones that do are rare and should be ferreted out as fraudsters. It's maddening. When we talk the real issue of social aid in the US, issues like what costs the nation more than NOT providing a social safety net, where is the cost /  benefit of providing it, even who actually gets aid... the most direct benefit - things look different.

I paid a HIGHER percentage of my measly income than Mittens... He got a tax deduction for owning a freakin SHOW PONY that was more than my family annual income... for a HOBBY HORSE! And that was one of the SMALLER deductions... And any company that actually PAYS the supposedly high corporate tax rate should fire their accountant as an incompetent. The real corporate tax rate is MUCH lower. We give companies breaks - they have racked up the largest coffers in history, they pay LOWER tax rates (wealthy people and corporations alike) than they have in my life time and they STILL think it is too much tax  - and here we find that ,because the lack of jobs, the shrinking real wages of workers are in decline, people are finding their company provided health care disappearing or becoming absurdly expensive, people feel like they need a small bit of help to get them over their immediate problems in ways that will ultimately help the economy at large...   - but these companies  and the wealth people of this country whine and complain that they pay too much taxes and these teet sucklers are not much more than greedy, lazy sheep. You cannot make these money sucking black holes happy for ANYTHING. This is not what the founders had in mind...

And these founders? They were mere men. They were not divine, they were not smarter than the smartest people of today. They had limitations, for sure. They used the rules and knowledge and philosophy of the Eighteenth Century to answer eighteenth century problems - they did a great job... but to pretend that it was the end product with no possibility of improvement is, well... regressive and illogical. Most people in the US know this is a morally bankrupted belief. It's illogical and a flat out lie. Trickle down economics doesn't trickle down. It is a failed economic fantasy proposed to defraud the masses for the sake of enriching the few. If there is a grand plan to redistribute wealth, then why is the wealth going up those that already have most of that money? It IS being redistributed... but not in the direction you think!

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Based on what evidence do you say that? I'm simply noting that the Amendments reflected that the Founders knew their document should be revised. When I go to Church and listen to an hour of someone ranting about how someone was the most evil President ever in the USA's history for merely changing the Constitution you can damn well expect me to be irritated at conservative insistence that changing the Constitution in and of itself is always and forever evil.

If the men of the 18th Century knew the Constitution might need to be changed for the future, why are we in the present expected to adhere to its rigid letter when they both devised it to change and ignored it 90% of the time themselves? Your insistence in focusing on rhetoric and thereby evading the point is of course expected, but then again......it's not exactly easy to note that people can change the Constitution legally and to square this with the GOP's cult-like mentality to the text in question.

[404.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution

The Constitution was last amended in 1992, not 1792.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And that's still got nothing to do with my actual point which is that Republicans expect people to adhere to the Constitution more than the Founders ever intended to do so themselves.

[404.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the hive mind Republicans. Are the same hive mind as the GOP are? I get confused, the RushBeckHannity talking points for the day haven't been beamed into my head yet, I guess.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, I can see that the quest of Don Quixote to tilt at strawmen and call it knightly heroism is still intact. Do you have any logically grounded points against what I'm saying or not? I mean the GOP was talking about how the ACA is unconstitutional when the SC ruled that it is, and they claim to only follow the Constitution exactly as it was written, which is why they want to keep 1 million soldiers in the ranks of the Armed Forces, as well as expand the Navy and the other services without taxing the country to pay for that bloating further of the military apparatus. Because in fiscal conservatism money falls off trees when it's ripe enough, and adding further billions for things we don't need doesn't require actually paying for those billions.

[404.livejournal.com]

Hey, you figured out the secret everyone already knew, politicians speak with a forked tongue and will twist and contort their ideology to suit the day.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And I've yet to figure out the other secret of how they get so many useful idiots to believe they actually mean the ideologies they proffer.

[404.livejournal.com]

People need things/groups/people to believe in.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So they keep getting suckered that easily by the same old trick? Perhaps I should start a joke political party and see how much someone banking on how totally stupid people are can do in the political spectrum.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Or you could just start a party based on what you believe in genuinely. You can call it the Realpolitik party.

However, if you say or do something hypocritical, everyone gets to void any and all merit to Realpolitik there might be, based on your personal failing only.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Saying or doing something hypocritical is the exact point of realpolitik. It doesn't have the failing of those who mistake their religion for their politics and refuse to admit either compromise or the moral ambiguity at the heart of the system in reality.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

And there's no instance where something is clearly not morally ambiguous? A moment when realpolitik fails?

You can't tell me that there isn't something out there that you would never compromise on.

Everyone has a line. Once you find it and hold it, now you're the hypocrite pushing for Realpolitik when you can't follow it.

Realpolitik has every bit the capacity to be it's own religion, the moment one places it on a pedestal. That's not necessarily a negative, however, it's just an admission that Realpolitik isn't as special as you may think it is in the world of ideals, when one makes an ideal out of Realpolitik.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The great practitioners of Realpolitik generally tended to fail, not because their policies weren't based on realism in practice but because they were agents of people who wanted to accomplish unrealistic ends. Realpolitik is also not an ideal. A good practitioner of realism is perfectly capable of making a deal with the Muhammad Morsis of the world to keep Egypt, while a good conservative on the current US model would gain the whole world and lose their souls.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Realpolitik is also not an ideal

Not in terms of having specific goals, no. But tell me how you would compromise with the historical issue of slavery as a domestic issue. How much compromise do you accept in order to maintain union? Keep the states together? Can you stomach any compromise (and providing you don't have the manpower to impose Realpolitik on the battlefield).

"The great practitioners of Realpolitik generally tended to fail, not because their policies weren't based on realism in practice but because they were agents of people who wanted to accomplish unrealistic ends."

Of course, because the only way Realpolitik would fail is if forces outside of it's representatives impose themselves on the negotiations. This doesn't sound like an idealistic defense of Realpolitik at all.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I compromise right up until the unhappy Southerners sabotage an election and decide to try to build an army with a state behind it. At that point I start burning down states until the Confederacy shuts up and gets over itself. If people want to bring into the equation civil war, I'd give them enough civil war that they'd not want it for 300 more years. And if it's slavery I would have the manpower on the battlefield even if my armies were led by a bunch of Leeroy Jenkinses so......

It's not idealistic. Otto von Bismarck couldn't control that his successors were going to be donkeys leading lions. Henry Kissinger couldn't lose a war gracefully if he went into it assuming it was lost and that more of the same failed practices which never answered the real issues would work by bubblegum and wishful thinking. Realpolitik works, but like everything else it ultimately withers on the vine because history's a vindictive bitch. Today's great Statesmen are tomorrow's Ozymandias, leaving forgotten fallen statues and nobody knows or cares who they are. Acknowledging this is *also* part of Realpolitik. Its opponents, OTOH, want to be either Jesus Christ or Khorne.

[tniassaint.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

We fought a war over this already - it is a settled issue.

THose that start going on about armed revolt and violence because their guy didn't win and they feel so put out are NOT patriots - they are NOT sane.

People like me suffered through 8 years of an imperial presidency of seriously questionable legitimacy (both elections having very suspicious irregularities) and we survived just fine. The GOTP and its fans will do ok as well. Corporate America and the Wealthy have MORE wealth and a greater share of the wealth than at any time in our modern history. It is pretty odd that they still claim draconian tax law is holding them back. States have some legitimate complaints about the oversight of the FED; but too bad. A strong central government has been demonstrated time and time again to be the answer to national stability. The current POTUS is not the raving communist he is accused of being anymore than a rowboat with a pistol in it is a battleship.

Once again it is all about balance.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually we didn't fight a war over nullification because the Southerners who wanted out couldn't get people hot and bothered over nullifying the law any more then than they do now. What we had the War over was them getting butthurt and deciding to settle it by brute force. Should have thought of that before Ulysses S. Grant gave them the most one-sided set of asskickings in the history of US warfare. Them that sow the wind reap the whirlwind. The pity is so many of their latter-day debased imitators missed and miss that when they decided to start a war, they had themselves to blame for losing it.

[404.livejournal.com]

People need things/groups/people to believe in.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

How precious. You're repeating and copy-pasting. I take it that this is another instance of admitting you've nothing to say?

[404.livejournal.com]

I didn't post that twicr, probably the website crapping out.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

My apologies. I spoke too soon. Sorry about that.