We are all rallying around, but I made a comment about our location (New England) to the effect that despite the reputation for liberalism there are a number of people here who nevertheless appreciate and will support young people who want to really earn their own way. My liberal friend says he inherited his money, while I say I worked my way up on my own:
> you seem to be saying that people that work for a living should
> naturally be conservative, and people that inherit money should
> naturally be liberal. Is that true?
Mmmm. Not sure about the words should naturally be. Perhaps substitute tend to be.
Conjecture is one thing, empirical fact is another: it is what it is; if the shoe fits, wear it...
:-)
In my case (certainly not speaking for all conservatives) I find it really offensive for someone else to give away my money. It's my money because I earned it and *I* shall decide where and how to spend it or give it.
Of course my plan doesn't work for some liberals because I will likely spend my money on my family and my grandchildren and my church, helping grow more people like me.
Liberals have this obscene delusion that they are somehow supernaturally omniscient and therefore own all the assets in the world and shall decide on their own basis how to distribute those assets.
Obscene.
Omigod. If everyone had the right do spend their money as they wish then what would happen to all these poor people who don't want to work?
So the liberals have devised, and through political correctness and brow beating, achieved an income redistribution system to take my money and give it to people who won't lift a finger.
At its base it is letting the people with the work ethic do all the work, some of them misguidedly investing in the stock market to make those non-workers rich, and then paying the rest in taxes to be given to the rest of the people who do not want to work.
In the past those of us workers who were smart enough just moved the money to Switzerland. But that is getting harder to do, and besides I'm living hand to mouth, so don't have money to spare to send to Switzerland.
So if the liberals do this enough then I just stop working.
Not a recipe for national prosperity.
In general you have to look at the marginal tax rate: as that approaches 100% you have then completely removed any incentive, other than altruistic, to work any further. And, as I have already shortlisted, I'm rather short on altruism.
An anecdote from my earlier years:
I was the operations officer of the ship, another fellow was the engineer. I was practicing prudent management, saving the requisitions that the crew had submitted that were not time- or mission-critical (like, replacing foul weather jackets) until the end of the quarter, while approving those that were needed now: e.g., radar magnetrons. I had already learned that you never give back money, but also believed that I could make sure the money was spent responsibly by waiting until all the cards were on the table, i.e., approaching the end of the quarter.
The engineer was not so assiduous. He raced through his money and then asked the captain for more. The captain, instead of chastising him, took my money. Needless to say I protested loudly, but the captain had done his deed.
So I then quickly learned to invest in durable goods and stockpile early in the quarter. The next time the engineer came begging all he found was radar magnetrons and CPR kits and foul weather jackets, which he could not use or trade in for cash. I knew that eventually we would need these things so it was not wasteful, just husbanding my resources.
So I have stayed in durable goods and out of the market ever since. As a result I am completely untouched by this so called Great Depression II that no one can see except Wall Streeters. See Peggy Noonan:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122773612620961005.html
Now in the ship case, it really was not "my" money, rather more so the captain's, and indeed far more so the Navy's and the taxpayers'. But it was not prudent, fair, or in any way correct to take that which I had husbanded and give it to a profligate.
I didn't invent that idea, Jesus did, with the story of the prodigal son, and his was based on 3000 years of society at large as a precedent thereto. It is just plain wrong.
Now as in that story, perhaps I shall receive rewards in heaven and surely my life is far better than most, but I DESERVE IT AND HAVE WORKED FOR IT. So it really irritates me in a most profane way when others get GIVEN that for which I have WORKED, and ESPECIALLY when it it taken FROM ME to give to them.
Yet another: I turned 65 this year. I went from $37 a month military medical insurance to Medicare. The base rate for medicare is $97. But I get to pay $300 because I make too much money!!
So, thanks to all the liberals in the government, my medical payments have increased TEN FOLD for the simple sin of turning 65. And they are TAKING IT FROM ME TO GIVE TO SOMEONE ELSE.
So, NO. Anyone of that bent is just plain wrong and I shall and will fight them any way I can legally and morally.
And I will help and support young people who seem to be smart enough to figure things out the way I have. There is little or no hope of changing the minds of the liberals, but perhaps we can grow enough conservatives to outvote them.
"I WORKED for it, why shouldn't you?"
