Stephen King's Message

From the Daily Beast;
Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!
(thedailybeast.com)

Warning, harsh language at the source.

What charitable 1 percenters can’t do is assume responsibility—America’s national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts. Charity from the rich can’t fix global warming or lower the price of gasoline by one single red penny. That kind of salvation does not come from Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Ballmer saying, “OK, I’ll write a $2 million bonus check to the IRS.” That annoying responsibility stuff comes from three words that are anathema to the Tea Partiers: United American citizenry.

I guess some of this mad right-wing love comes from the idea that in America, anyone can become a Rich Guy if he just works hard and saves his pennies. Mitt Romney has said, in effect, “I’m rich and I don’t apologize for it.” Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bull**** persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it’s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It’s un-****ing-American is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that—sorry, kiddies—you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay—not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Governor Christie’s words, but to pay—in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money.

Much, MUCH more at the source. One of the best tirades I've heard in a long time, and it speaks to the core of the current ongoing political dissension.

There was a time when people viewed the government as a public service, there to provide for the common good of all Americans, rich and poor. The government wasn't a for-profit corporation, out to keep itself in the black, nor was it means to control and dominate every facet of your social or personal life, by invasive privacy-robbing dominionists. People used to believe in America, that's why they were willing to pay their fair into the system, to keep it strong. But now we have a class of super-wealthy elite, who are doing everything they can to undermine that system, to keep the system so skewed in their favor that it all but eliminates the ability for competition - it reduces America to a vassal state of the select wealthy.

So we should just punish them for being rich by taking away 99% of everything they own and giving them to the lazy people who don't want to work because they deserve more than the rich do. Okey dokey, that sounds good to me.

Which is why I believe in the flat tax, with no loop holes.

reply to post by EvilSadamClone


Uh, no, your comment isn't even remotely relevant to the article. Read it before replying.

Old news...5 months old infact!

reply to post by EvilSadamClone

Some say the rich get richer, by making others work harder and then reaping the fruit of others sweat.
But that isn't borne out by fact ..is it?
Stephen King got rich by collecting money for words he put on paper, perhaps he should drive a bus for awhile or be a cleaner, see how his opinion may change then or not.

Stephen knows better than anyone that there can only be a certain number of horror writers, or else he wouldn't be earning enough to worry about tax.

Originally posted by Hydrawolf
Old news...5 months old infact!

Wow...

1st post in and you're setting us straight.

Peace

I think Mr. King has the right intentions, but he seems to be a bit partisan.
Now don't get me wrong, the republicans deserve all the blasting they get, but the democrats are equally guilty.

The biggest problem as I see it, is that being in politics is too damned profitable. And as long as that continues the Govt. will continue to be corrupt and wasteful, and continue to make policies and laws that further wreck this country.

I say, make profiting from public service illegal, and put all elected and appointed public officials on minimum wage. Then watch how fast the rats abandon ship.

Hell, we might even see some progress.

I've admired Stephen King ever since I realized that he speaks the truth that no one wants to hear. If there's a dark reality lurking in the heart of a matter, he's the one to drag it out and describe it in the most depressingly un-sugarcoated terms that one can possibly confront a man desperately avoiding the darker side of life with.

And really, because of all the head-in-the-sand syndrome that the people have willingly afflicted themselves with, I support that mindset that Stephen King brings to the dinner table like Mom's old-fashioned casserole that is skirted like a leper. I just watched The Tall Man, and during one scene, Jessica Biel's character talks about how the system is broken, and trying to help break the cycle by allowing the younger generation a chance to really grow. I won't ruin the movie, but that's the line of thinking that Stephen King is circling right here, from the impression I got while reading the article.

And that's part of why I look up to the guy...he's a realist, and he's not afraid of dragging a dead rat from a crack in the wall, holding it in the air by its tail for all to see, and saying, "Hey guys, listen the f*** up, we have a problem here. What are you planning to do about it?"

Originally posted by EvilSadamClone
So we should just punish them for being rich by taking away 99% of everything they own and giving them to the lazy people who don't want to work because they deserve more than the rich do. Okey dokey, that sounds good to me.

Which is why I believe in the flat tax, with no loop holes.

Don't want to work, or can't work/are underemployed?

The wealth didn't trickle down, no one with any sense really expected it to. Instead companies were not penalized for outsourcing jobs and money was horded.

Massively increase income tax for high earners, something like 60%, increase taxes on businesses who outsource and give tax breaks for companies that reverse their outsourcing or have their jobs in the US.

Has anyone noticed that the people who earned their wealth seems to have no problem paying taxes? The ones that are always whining about taxes are the ones who inherited their wealth the ones who didn't work for it. Unless you call waiting for mommy and daddy to die working.

reply to post by SG-17

Massively increase income tax for high earners, something like 60%, increase taxes on businesses who outsource and give tax breaks for companies that reverse their outsourcing or have their jobs in the US.

Obama tried to give tax cuts to companies to bring jobs back to America but the republicans blocked it. And import taxes on companies that outsource should be taxed so high that there is no longer a profit in it.

I'm always astonished at the conservatives that whine about the poor getting a break but always avoid
corporate welfare in the form of taxpayer supplied subsidies.

Even when oil companies are showing record profits; the taxpayer subsides keep rolling in.

wispirgstudents.org...

www.cnn.com...

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


I think Stephen King is especially qualified to write about Mitt because Mitt is essentially one of King's antagonists in any of his novels that feature a suave serial killer.

Typical Stephen King serial killer:

- Sociopath - Check. Saying "corporations are people" means he personifies things and dehumanizes people. That is sociopath behavior.

- Abuse to Animals - Check. We all know about his dogs. Who knows what else he thinks is normal when it comes to his pets.

- Super Creepy Stalking/Dress-up - Check. We all know about his dress-up shenanigans in college. You know, the felonies he liked to commit by impersonating a police officer?

- Able To Demonstrate A Completely Disfunctional Sense Of Empathy - Check. His habit of joking about firing people is insane. Also, he has stated his twisted belief that it is a good thing that we exploit Chinese slave labor.

- King's Serial Killers Often Show Early Signs In High School - Check. In high school, Mitt held down another student and cut his hair. Kind of a bigot bully, that Mittens.

- Charisma That Comes Off TOO Perfect And Suave - Check. You know how we all know he's got a bad-guy-charm personality? Because it's so obviously a bad-guy-charm personality. I don't even think I need to convince anybody of this.

He is straight from one of King's books.

reply to post by Cuervo


Do you realize exactly how much of America you covered in at least half of those bullet points?

By those standards, he's a model American!

Originally posted by olaru12


I'm always astonished at the conservatives that whine about the poor getting a break but always avoid
corporate welfare in the form of taxpayer supplied subsidies.

Even when oil companies are showing record profits; the taxpayer subsides keep rolling in.

wispirgstudents.org...

www.cnn.com...

Think that's bad? We even use taxpayer dollars to subsidize Nascar. The Pentagon sponsors Nascar teams. Not a high school, or a school lunch program, nor a daycare for poverty-level single working mothers, a Nascar race team.

This country has some screwed up priorities.

Originally posted by Hydrawolf
Old news...5 months old infact!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Stephen King has one flaw in his reasoning...

He thinks that the rich want to pay their taxes as well as their fair share...

History and recent events seems to show otherwise...

Maybe Mr. King is just one of the honest rich folk who wants to do just that (a rare things this age)...

Originally posted by here4awhile


Maybe Mr. King is just one of the honest rich folk who wants to do just that (a rare things this age)...

Warmth in Maine

I like him more for who he is mostly

Originally posted by jude11

Originally posted by Hydrawolf
Old news...5 months old infact!

Wow...

1st post in and you're setting us straight.

Peace

edit on 1-9-2012 by jude11 because: (no reason given)

Yeah, I'm having a hard time understanding how, how many months old the article is has ANYTHING to do with the content.

Sounds like a deflection tactic to me.

reply to post by AfterInfinity

Do you realize exactly how much of America you covered in at least half of those bullet points?

Uh no, the majority of people are not sociopaths or psychopaths..