New people are born into the world, but the money supply stays the same. Although everyone realizes this is an intuitive fact, once you think about it you must also realize that new people to this world are at a tremendous disadvantage compared to those who have had a head start. Considering money also piles up in the hands of the wealthy over generations, the gap between the "rich" and the "poor" widens double-time.

All argument about "oh but we worked so hard" and "we pay so much in taxes" and "nobody is going to redistribute my wealth" starts to fall on my deaf ears once you've got a billion dollars. You don't work. You invest, manipulate, leverage, and push around numbers...

The rich don't work. They hire people to work for them. Then decide what they get paid, often much less than the owners or CEO. They're what I call "labor pimps."

The rich also have other options, such as investing. Again, getting someone else to think of good ideas and put them to work, while profiting off their industry.

Or, they have that miracle called compound interest. Getting paid to have money. Wow, what a deal... If you've got a billion dollars you could just keep it in the account books of a bank and get a few percent interest on it. If it's say... 3% you get $30 million per year just for sitting on your rear-end... while the people who didn't have the money get to pay a poor tax borrowing it and paying you the interest. Working, meanwhile!

Money is a weapon. The primary enforcer of disadvantage.

Social Darwinism, and writers like Ayn Rand, are popular mostly among the young, white, comfortably raised, well-educated, healthy segment of the population who expect to make millions someday. Not all of them can or will, of course, but they expect to.

For a brief time when I was in college I flirted with the ideas of Ayn Rand too.

Then real life happened, and I found I wasn't an island unto myself and sometimes needed assistance from my family or friends. No one that I know who has "made it" has done it entirely by their own will and determination; they have had advantages (like inherited wealth with which to start a business) and sometimes hand-ups that they don't even acknowledge once they have "arrived."

My sister-in-law is a case in point. She insists that everything she has achieved in life she has done entirely on her own. She doesn't acknowledge the resources and efforts of her husband or the support of my family.

Sometime in our lives almost all of us, if we are truly honest with ourselves, will need a hand-up or a hand-out, at least temporarily.

Social Darwinism--the "survival of the fittest" mentality--is mostly only espoused by the most privileged members of society. People who have been subjected to the hardships of life tend to take a more generous attitude toward others.

My fundamental attitude is that it doesn't take much for people to have just what they really need to get by in life--not what they want or are taught to want by a consumerist society--and that our society has the means to provide basic sustenance (and yes, health care) to everyone. From there on, it is the individual's responsibility to acquire more if that is what motivates them.

Some of us will always have more gifts and privileges than others, but in a truly civilized society no one should have to fall below a level where the most basic needs are met.

Just a few quick points.

More recently, I have actually heard people on this site advocating the dismantling of the entire welfare system.

How is the dismantling of a corrupt, poverty creating, disincentive to work, that's based on the theft of other peoples property so bad? Is there a better, cheaper, more just way to do this or are we just brainwashed into thinking that taking care of the poor is only a service the government can provide?

The only alternative system for welfare I have heard from the right was giving churches the responsibility of taking care of the needy, and anyone with half a brain would realize this could never work.

Churches, other organizations, and all people that believe in helping their fellow humans can do this while not have to rely on a system of theft and inefficiency. It is just your belief that people should be forced to donate to a bad program while other, better programs go underfunded.

For the record, I am not of the right.

People are equal and it's about time everyone is treated as such. Equal access to energy, technology, goods and services.

People are equal, therefore it does not require the state to create inequalities to make people feel more equal. The Venus Project is a castle in the sky that is amazingly unrealistic.

Taxation is theft. Any property taken from an individual by use of coercion is stealing. The problem is the state has a legal monopoly of force so they do whatever they want.

Any and all things the government does, good or bad, are derived by the legalized exploitation of the the common man. One can point out the positive things government does but it is all at the expense of those the government controls.

How is welfare not an incentive to work? You pay able bodied people because they do not have jobs.

5 years? People can stay on welfare for five years. As someone who (reluctantly) pays taxes, I do not see this as a good use of my money, but I have no say in what my money is used for. Statists, like yourself, are so brainwashed by the idea of government solipotence that any option that does not involve government is not an option entirely.

If the government didn't manufacture and give us all shoes, would we all go barefoot?

A technocracy is a oligarchy fueled by asymmetric information.

Originally posted by The Transhumanist

You pay able bodied people for applying for jobs until they find work. Is that such an evil concept to you? As was already said, your not just paid to do nothing. If you are not applying for at least 15 jobs a week or involved in a job training program or in some cases an associates degree program, you are kicked off of welfare within 6 months.

All you have done is criticize my ideas. What are your anarchist alternatives? Put the well being of the poor into the hands of the democratic majority? A gift economy? What kind of anarchy are you proposing?

The thought process is generally to say either "we need to help the poor" or "screw the poor", and each side says both. The idea is not the sides, but how the question is phrased.

It's not the idea of helping people that is in contention, but how such things should be brokered. The government (federal specifically) is not the only broker on these sorts of things.

This is a very charitable nation, regardless of social programs. If given the money taken for these programs, our private social network would get quite a nice boost.

It doesn't hurt that more owned money (rather than owed money) in an economy spurs small business. That creates more jobs that are good jobs faster than any federal plan ever could.

If you want to work, you should be able to work. If you want to help, you are free to do so. Freedom is a wonderful thing, but it takes work to do it. Charity is good work, but it is work too. This requires community, which I believe to be a good thing.

Are you opposed only to De Facto states or would you accept a De Jure state? Surely you are not so brainwashed by your anarchist views to see that the democratic majority would be exploiting you and stealing from you in much the same way a state would.

A democratic majority has no power to hurt in a Constitutional Republic. It's a cool thing if we allowed it to work.

That way, the local elections might start making a difference. Also a good thing.

Anyway, thanks for the chat. Look forward to it.

Peace,
KJ

[edit on 15-10-2009 by KrazyJethro]

The thought process is generally to say either "we need to help the poor" or "screw the poor", and each side says both. The idea is not the sides, but how the question is phrased.

I agree. Both sides are ultimately guilty of ignoring this problem. The right has a certain tendency to stereotype and marginalize the poor while the left generally hold them in a more humanistic light, although there legislation rarely if ever lives up to this value.

Again, I didn't mean to undermine the absolutely amazing job some communities do of taking care of their own, I just don't think they can handle the logistics of taking on the entire poor populous if the welfare system was dismantled. Both the community and the government need to start working together to tackle this issue seeing as neither solution is doing enough on their own.

Would you be more willing to be taxed if the majority of that money was going directly to community organizations that help the poor rather than the welfare program?

The answer is very simple - there should be no welfare at all.

The government should act as the employer of last resort - and families should take care of those who are unable to work due to age, pregnacy, raising children and so on.

The social engineering that went on in the 60's with the womens rights movement was purely driven by the NWO agenda. Firstly they want to create social divisions - how powerful if you can divide men from women?

All these issues such as racism, sexism, feminism, political extremism, religion and so on are purely driven by the NWO agenda to crate divisions in society.

The other benefit of convincing women they should work is that they have more 'drones' in the work force making money.

Women should not have to work in a traditional job if they dont want to - they should not feel guilty about letting their partner pay everything for them - they should in fact, just appreciate it and relax - a relationship is so much better when at least one person isn't under stress all the time - if women are rested, happy, free of stress and have free time - then they provide a support for the relationship that far exceeds a contribution they might make financially. On the other hand - leave us ALONE for a while occasionally lol.

If they want to work - then go ahead - but realize it isn't an obligation, and I really see the benefits of one person in the relationship having low stress - so don't work too long, or too hard!

If there were less women in the work force, then salaries would also increase - due to a lower labor pool. This makes it easier to support a family from a single income.

The main problem with salaries now is due to monopolistic corporations that use cheap labor outside the country. This is a way of importing coroporate profit, and exporting social cost - its evil and it should stop. A nation should draw a line around its boundaries - and everything inside that line should be used to profit the citizens inside it - if you create welath in your country - then you sure as hell are entitled to it as a citizen.

The corporation, the use of fiat money issued not by the people, and usuary have destroyed the wealth of the common people in every country - unless those vile machines are removed - then it is stupid to even argue about things like welfare.

99% of the wealth of the world rests in a few hands - they will not share it by compassion - they must be made to relinquish it by force.