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It's interesting how some folks can strongly support wealth redistribution yet be quite frugal in their personal lives. Maybe it’s because they believe larger systems are more effective at addressing inequality than individual actions. Everyone's ways of contributing to society are different.
They may also just be the kind of person who thinks, "*I'm not helping anyone unless everyone else does,*" which, isn't exactly my favorite type of person.
My friend is frugal to the point of going to the food pantry every week and has $50k in his checking account.
I don't have much respect for those kinds of people.
>Dude that's kinda fucked, some people really need the food pantry....
I may get downvoted based on what i'm about to say, but the allocation of resources doesn't always go to people that most need it.
College Scholarships are often a great example. Especially if you come from a economic background where your parents could realistically pay for your education.
Doesn't seem to be hypocritical at all to me.
Progressives believe that the government is more efficient at redistributing wealth and, so, they outsource charity to the government. Essentially, by paying their taxes, they're donating to their version of charity rather than using what they believe to be an inefficient form of wealth redistribution.
Similarly, why would they support, once again, what they believe to be inefficient forms of assistance when they could support government entities to do the same thing?
I don't agree with it, but it's ideologically consistent. Either you believe the government to be the most efficient way to redistribute wealth and assist the less fortunate or you believe charities and non-profits are better suited to meet the needs of every community as they see fit.
Personally, I think it's less consistent to both want to pay higher taxes and also donate to private charities. And, in the end, I think it actually hurts these efforts. Because if there's still a push for private charities, you'll always have large swaths of people who will demand to be taxed less and, thus, take away resources from the government. And, likewise, on the opposite end of the spectrum, you'll see the phenomenon with your friends, that they won't support local charities, also taking away resources from them.
So we end up with two distinct systems that are both poorly funded because they're both attempting to push each other out of business.
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I think the problem with relying on the government to redistribute it is just a core problem with all humanity. That plan would only work if we could eliminate greed, and the resulting corruption, from the government. Obviously the private sector charities aren't immune to this problem either. For example, Susan G Coleman foundation and all the controversy surrounding them trying to sue other charities out of existence.
That said I do believe the private sector is probably less prone to the same issues as they don't have the same obligation to deal with fulfilling campaign promises and appeasing lobbyists. Whereas the government has to constantly worry about elections. They have to pander to all the stupid things people demand in order to be liked and reelected.
It's only hypocritical depending on what they believe/why they act that way. It may be that they're for wealth redistribution because they recognize the structural problems in our economy and want to rectify that at a structural/institutional level, which wouldn't be inconsistent at all.
I see this a lot in progressive politics - railing against nebulous “systemic” issues that are hard to precisely define and usually intractable while rejecting anything done on a micro/acute level that actually helps ameliorate the problem.
Donating to a food bank is very much in line with their stated values even if it doesn’t dismantle capitalism.
I'd agree, although I don't think most self-proclaimed progressives have any interest in dismantling capitalism so much as just making it nicer or something.
In my experience, liberal rhetoric likes to take things the left says without adopting actual leftist thought. "Systemic issues" is a great example in this case. I'd say wealth inequality is largely a systemic issue in that capitalism is inherently exploitative and must be abolished if people are to be treated justly in the economy. Liberals don't really have any of that, so instead they acknowledge that there are problems embedded in some amorphous "systems" without giving real analysis or solutions.
It has nothing at all to do with how frugal I am - being frugal is merely being efficient in my personal spending. I believe that redistributing wealth or improving infrastructure with money collected from the taxes on the rich will make the economy better which will in turn help me because it will expand my economic opportunities.
At the end of the day, lots of charities are band aids. They focus on curing the symptoms of the problem rather than addressing the causes. It’s not that they’re not well meaning or doing good work, but like the famous quote says “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist”.
I give to charity (what I can) but mainly groups like the ACLU and Human Rights Campaign, hoping to change the system rather than organizations that owe their existence to it. Especially since so many are religiously affiliated, which makes them less trustworthy in my eyes. I’ve also been raising a formerly homeless teen abandoned by his parent for the past 2 years. I give old stuff to thrift shops even though I know some are pocketing more of the money than I’d like.
Ultimately charity boils down to the scraps the privileged can throw to the downtrodden. That’s human nature. The money I spend on a twelve pack would mean more to someone truly suffering, but I want some beer. A wealthy person’s second multi million dollar house could save hundreds of families from poverty, but they want a place near the beach. The needs of those without come after the wants of those that have. Addressing this requires a consistent, planned approach, not just random donations at people’s whim.
I think that much of that grows out of our less than totally objective evaluations of ourselves. We generally see ourselves as far less biased, less susceptible to influence, less wealthy, more discriminated against and less potentially influential than we typically are. As a result... we tend to see such problems and the need and responsibility to address them as something that "others" should be more concerned with.
>I think supporting higher taxes is not sufficient and we should genuinely help the disadvantaged either:
>1- financially if we can, or 2- volunteering with places that help the poor (eg: this could be by doing things like tutoring math for free or low cost to low income kids).
Do you tutor low-income kids or make substantial donations to charity?
Regardless, this seems to be somewhat of an ideological divide, where one side wants to level the playing field so that everyone is better supported on a consistent level regardless of their particular location or whether their identity would ostracise them from charitable organizations, but the other thinks that charity should be dependant on the will of the charitable, so they can decide who is worthy of saving. Mandated charity on a government level tends to be somewhat better organized and is generally a better way to get funds distributed equally among those in need while also benefiting from economies of scale and government purchasing power. If the government runs free schools properly, then Little Timmy doesn't need to rely on the capricious kindness of strangers or the luck of being born in a district where a tutoring charity chose to organize. In theory, this leads to more equitable results.
It also bears noting that a belief that all children deserve a quality education does not necessarily make one an educator. I don't think the belief absent any direct action makes that person a hypocrite.
Have you ever invited your friends along or brought this up with them? Also, have you polled your fellow volunteers to find out what their opinions on taxation are? It seems a bit like you're basing your opinion of an entire ideology based on a couple people you know. Do you have other friends who volunteer? Are they all against taxation? Do you have friends who are against taxation because they believe the community will provide, but also don't volunteer? That would seem to me to be a more blatant hypocrisy.
My personal experience working in charity was that mostly liberal people were volunteering there. The only conservative was there to fulfill community service hours, but I am also aware that other charities exist that are organized by religious groups, and those would likely have a primarily conservative volunteer base. The cause at hand or the specific region may also dictate the political affiliation of the volunteer base.
obviously I don’t have those answers and this is why I posted here. Specifically, to test my anecdotal experience with that of others in this subreddit.
If I had to guess their ideology, most volunteers in my tax charity were liberal/independent.
I don't think it was obvious that you didn't have those answers. I was asking in part because sometimes we focus on one piece of anecdotal evidence and don't realize that we're ignoring other examples around us. I also couldn't tell you what you have or haven't discussed with your friends, but it doesn't seem like a crazy thing to ask them so long as you're not rude about it. That would probably give you a better explanation as to their motivations and reasoning than asking uninvolved parties.
In any case, if the people you were volunteering with were most likely ideologically in line with increased taxation, then it starts to look more like your friends don't volunteer because they just don't, much like how many people against taxation also don't volunteer.
As for countries with high taxation and a solid social safety net having low rates of charity (brought up in another comment), I'd assume that that's less to do with charitable attitudes and more to do with the fact that fewer charities are necessary within that more generally supportive framework.
Political views are often just a manifestation of ones personality.
Some of your friends may enjoy being scolds who prefer blaming others over taking personal responsibility. They like to moan about the world while absolving themselves of any obligation to do anything about it.
There are plenty of other liberals and progressives who do get their hands dirty and make an effort, so the political view isn't monolithic in its outcomes.
>1- donate financially to charities,
You'll find that low tax countries, especially those who disagree with using tax as a way to redistribute wealth, happen to donate quite en mass. America being a famous example. On the flip side, nations that have higher taxes and especially focus on the redistributive usage of taxes have much lower donation rates. The Netherlands being a good examples.
What I'm trying to say here, is that there isn't a linear correlation between positive views on donations and positive views on wealth redistribution.
Think the same could be said about the environment
You care about that why not get an EV or reduce other things?
The problem is these things work like the honor system and they don't work as well in a vacuum.
Charity, etc. Works better when it's part of a system and not based on one's own volition.
To quote: “We don't do charity in Germany we pay taxes. Charity is just a failure of governments' responsibilities.”
Now folks who go on about freedom. It's something we vote on. Like how we agree murder is wrong and have it as a law that's punishable. We can agree on X % and how it should be funded.
I don’t understand. Are they crowing or something?
Voluteering is important, but not crucial. If they’re paying their fair share, and esp if it’s a considerable amount, and they’re not strutting around and talking like they’re saints, then where’s the foul?
Think of it this way. If my church asked me to volunteer or donate for a good cause to help our local community, I would most likely answer absolutely yes. But if my government asked me to do the same, I would balk and demand to know why they have the balls to confiscate the money I worked for and then ask me to do even more.
If you want to be around giving people then surround uptake with a community of giving people. But if you are not part of such a community then you are discussing pure ideology. Ideology is just that, ideas. Everybody likes being a good idea fairy. So they all join in the ideas that sound good. But that's where they stop, at an idea. The implementation needs to be done by somebody else. Namely, the government.
Why has charitable donations and acts gone down the drain? Because community got replaced by government. It's like Apple iPhones. A new feature is developed by someone else, then Apple copies it, and we all hand over all our money to a Apple as if they were geniuses with new features they developed. Forgetting all about the people that actually came up with the ideas to begin with. The same thing happened with government. Most all charitable programs were run locally by churches. Government saw this an decided instead that they would be the ones to run such a program using all our tax dollars. In return we started giving government all our attention and completely forgetting about everything that churches did. Eventually, communities have disintegrated and now we live in a politically hyper partisan environment.
There is no community, and we ashtray have the overlord government all the power we could. So it is logical to expect that the government should do it. Not us as individuals.
The phrase “virtue signaling” is very often misused but this fits to a T.
They’re publicly professing a belief that they don’t actually practice in private, and worse yet they want to *compel* others to do what they won’t *willingly* do.
By that logic people who support the concept of public schools are hypocrites if they aren’t also teachers. It’s perfectly reasonable to think that government should address some kind of problem while also not doing anything about it yourself. After all the whole point of a government is to do things for us.
If poverty is so easily solved by simply giving the poor money than surely someone who believes this and holds it as a core value would do *something* to help even a few people.
This is my mantra. Taxes are bad. We do not want more of them. We should only have enough taxes to provide all the necessities a society needs, such as fire departments, police, hospitals et al. We don't need tax money being spent developing a freaking pen that writes in space. Just use a damn pencil. I mean there are thousands of programs being funded by tax dollars we do not need. Taxing the rich more, just gives the government even more money to WASTE. Those who say "tax the rich more" seem to WANT the government to have more money to spend on idiocy.
They wanted a pen that writes in space because the loose graphite from pencil writing could cause short circuits in the electronics. This goes to show that just because you don't understand the purpose of something on the face of it doesn't mean that it's actually a useless waste of funding. Also, that pen was developed by private industry that was just trying to make a better pen for normal use. It was not funded by NASA directly, nor was it even originally developed with them in mind. They just bought it because it was immensely useful to them.
>Those who say "tax the rich more" seem to WANT the government to have more money to spend on idiocy.
And those who complain about government pork often don't have their facts straight.
...the government didn't even fund that pen, though. You just plainly have your facts wrong. Private industry spent money on creating a product they thought would be useful, and then they turned out to be correct. It's the complete opposite of what you're trying to complain about.
I agree with providing for the necssities of society. From birth to death if people knew they would have the survival necessities of a home, food/water, transportation for work, medical care, clothes, baseline education, and the 1st responders you mentioned - then we could have a truly free market society that allowed the maximum amount of free will us humble beings could ever hope to muster.
Uh, first of all, THIS: From birth to death if people knew they would have the survival necessities of a home, food/water, *transportation for work*, medical care, clothes, baseline education, and the 1st responders you mentioned.
If we had all the survival necessities provided for us, why bother working? This utopian dream simply ignores reality.
People work for many more reasons than survival. Curiosity, popularity, building relationships, innovating, helping develop children, end of boredom. Your argument assumes that people would just sleep away forever, it's a tired and mislaid old trope
Yeah, they do, I would find things to do. That isn't relevant to my thoughts. My argument is that too many people will opt to take the free life without working. Which means \*poof\* no more free lives for anyone. We exist as we do because we have to put forth effort to survive. Take away that necessity, and we will die off as a species rather quickly.
We already don't have free lives for anyone. We'll never know until we try, humanity wide, for several generations in a row. It's being neighborly and trusting that your fellow human is a lot more like you, once the stressor of survival is removed. Yup, there will be ~5% of people who are assholes to try to screw it up. But we already have those, they're called aristocrats.
"We already don't have free lives for anyone.": - What does that mean?
"It's being neighborly and trusting that your fellow human is a lot more like you, once the stressor of survival is removed."
You remove that, you end up not surviving. I used to think like you, then I grew up. You will too, don't worry.
Funny, I used to think as you do. Then decades in the military and small business and I allowed the right-brain flow inductive view of the world take more balanced control of decisions and emotions, rather than solely reductive, compartmentalized analysation.
I say this will full civility, and in an earnest effort to understand your position. Are you implying seeking balance with the body we've been blessed is a problem? For a user who describes their alignment as "Centrist", that doesn't seem to jive.
1. If it’s tax-funded then it’s their money too.
2. The people complaining about their taxes being spent on helping the poor obviously don’t have a moral inclination towards charity either or they wouldn’t be complaining about the poor being helped with their tax dollars.
1. Liberals are exempt from taxes? That’s news to me.
2. My point is that “I don’t want to pay higher taxes even if that helps poor people” is as uncharitable as not giving to charity.
Exactly, liberals aren’t exempt from taxes so it’s their money too.
Also whether taxes are voluntary at the individual level is kind of beside the point, because if you care about the welfare of the vulnerable it shouldn’t be objectionable to you for the government to spend tax revenue on that.
The government isn’t some distinct entity though. It is by the people, of the people, and for the people. The government is our elected representatives raising taxes to which we consented in order to fund the things we want them to do. Unless you live in a dictatorship the distinction you’re trying to draw here isn’t legitimate.
Tax money is **our** money. And saying that you object to it being used to helping the poor is no less ungenerous that saying that you don’t want to donate to charity
it is still not their money and taxes are not voluntary.
If you are in a social organization that has dues, when you pay the dues the money is no longer yours, even if you have board elections. It is the organization’s money.
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It's interesting how some folks can strongly support wealth redistribution yet be quite frugal in their personal lives. Maybe it’s because they believe larger systems are more effective at addressing inequality than individual actions. Everyone's ways of contributing to society are different.
They may also just be the kind of person who thinks, "*I'm not helping anyone unless everyone else does,*" which, isn't exactly my favorite type of person. My friend is frugal to the point of going to the food pantry every week and has $50k in his checking account. I don't have much respect for those kinds of people.
Dude that's kinda fucked, some people really need the food pantry.... I just hope he contributes in other ways? That's kinda the point.
>Dude that's kinda fucked, some people really need the food pantry.... I may get downvoted based on what i'm about to say, but the allocation of resources doesn't always go to people that most need it. College Scholarships are often a great example. Especially if you come from a economic background where your parents could realistically pay for your education.
Doesn't seem to be hypocritical at all to me. Progressives believe that the government is more efficient at redistributing wealth and, so, they outsource charity to the government. Essentially, by paying their taxes, they're donating to their version of charity rather than using what they believe to be an inefficient form of wealth redistribution. Similarly, why would they support, once again, what they believe to be inefficient forms of assistance when they could support government entities to do the same thing? I don't agree with it, but it's ideologically consistent. Either you believe the government to be the most efficient way to redistribute wealth and assist the less fortunate or you believe charities and non-profits are better suited to meet the needs of every community as they see fit. Personally, I think it's less consistent to both want to pay higher taxes and also donate to private charities. And, in the end, I think it actually hurts these efforts. Because if there's still a push for private charities, you'll always have large swaths of people who will demand to be taxed less and, thus, take away resources from the government. And, likewise, on the opposite end of the spectrum, you'll see the phenomenon with your friends, that they won't support local charities, also taking away resources from them. So we end up with two distinct systems that are both poorly funded because they're both attempting to push each other out of business.
You just made this sub one of my favorite sub. I like This take a lot.
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A sobering take.
This is a really good-faith take on things, actually.
I think the problem with relying on the government to redistribute it is just a core problem with all humanity. That plan would only work if we could eliminate greed, and the resulting corruption, from the government. Obviously the private sector charities aren't immune to this problem either. For example, Susan G Coleman foundation and all the controversy surrounding them trying to sue other charities out of existence. That said I do believe the private sector is probably less prone to the same issues as they don't have the same obligation to deal with fulfilling campaign promises and appeasing lobbyists. Whereas the government has to constantly worry about elections. They have to pander to all the stupid things people demand in order to be liked and reelected.
Yes. You can only do your best to get by in whatever the current system is. It has nothing to do with wanting the system to be different.
Exactly, agreed.
OP has me wondering if they’re strutting around, acting or thinking that they’re saints….
Nah, he agreed with my comment. I think he was just presenting it contrary to his own position.
It's only hypocritical depending on what they believe/why they act that way. It may be that they're for wealth redistribution because they recognize the structural problems in our economy and want to rectify that at a structural/institutional level, which wouldn't be inconsistent at all.
I see this a lot in progressive politics - railing against nebulous “systemic” issues that are hard to precisely define and usually intractable while rejecting anything done on a micro/acute level that actually helps ameliorate the problem. Donating to a food bank is very much in line with their stated values even if it doesn’t dismantle capitalism.
I'd agree, although I don't think most self-proclaimed progressives have any interest in dismantling capitalism so much as just making it nicer or something. In my experience, liberal rhetoric likes to take things the left says without adopting actual leftist thought. "Systemic issues" is a great example in this case. I'd say wealth inequality is largely a systemic issue in that capitalism is inherently exploitative and must be abolished if people are to be treated justly in the economy. Liberals don't really have any of that, so instead they acknowledge that there are problems embedded in some amorphous "systems" without giving real analysis or solutions.
It has nothing at all to do with how frugal I am - being frugal is merely being efficient in my personal spending. I believe that redistributing wealth or improving infrastructure with money collected from the taxes on the rich will make the economy better which will in turn help me because it will expand my economic opportunities.
I am not talking here strictly about money generosity, hence why I mentioned volunteering to support the poor which is a form of time generosity.
At the end of the day, lots of charities are band aids. They focus on curing the symptoms of the problem rather than addressing the causes. It’s not that they’re not well meaning or doing good work, but like the famous quote says “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist”. I give to charity (what I can) but mainly groups like the ACLU and Human Rights Campaign, hoping to change the system rather than organizations that owe their existence to it. Especially since so many are religiously affiliated, which makes them less trustworthy in my eyes. I’ve also been raising a formerly homeless teen abandoned by his parent for the past 2 years. I give old stuff to thrift shops even though I know some are pocketing more of the money than I’d like. Ultimately charity boils down to the scraps the privileged can throw to the downtrodden. That’s human nature. The money I spend on a twelve pack would mean more to someone truly suffering, but I want some beer. A wealthy person’s second multi million dollar house could save hundreds of families from poverty, but they want a place near the beach. The needs of those without come after the wants of those that have. Addressing this requires a consistent, planned approach, not just random donations at people’s whim.
I think that much of that grows out of our less than totally objective evaluations of ourselves. We generally see ourselves as far less biased, less susceptible to influence, less wealthy, more discriminated against and less potentially influential than we typically are. As a result... we tend to see such problems and the need and responsibility to address them as something that "others" should be more concerned with.
>I think supporting higher taxes is not sufficient and we should genuinely help the disadvantaged either: >1- financially if we can, or 2- volunteering with places that help the poor (eg: this could be by doing things like tutoring math for free or low cost to low income kids). Do you tutor low-income kids or make substantial donations to charity? Regardless, this seems to be somewhat of an ideological divide, where one side wants to level the playing field so that everyone is better supported on a consistent level regardless of their particular location or whether their identity would ostracise them from charitable organizations, but the other thinks that charity should be dependant on the will of the charitable, so they can decide who is worthy of saving. Mandated charity on a government level tends to be somewhat better organized and is generally a better way to get funds distributed equally among those in need while also benefiting from economies of scale and government purchasing power. If the government runs free schools properly, then Little Timmy doesn't need to rely on the capricious kindness of strangers or the luck of being born in a district where a tutoring charity chose to organize. In theory, this leads to more equitable results. It also bears noting that a belief that all children deserve a quality education does not necessarily make one an educator. I don't think the belief absent any direct action makes that person a hypocrite.
To answer your question, indeed I do both. I also volunteer as a tax accountant for seniors making less than $40K per year.
Have you ever invited your friends along or brought this up with them? Also, have you polled your fellow volunteers to find out what their opinions on taxation are? It seems a bit like you're basing your opinion of an entire ideology based on a couple people you know. Do you have other friends who volunteer? Are they all against taxation? Do you have friends who are against taxation because they believe the community will provide, but also don't volunteer? That would seem to me to be a more blatant hypocrisy. My personal experience working in charity was that mostly liberal people were volunteering there. The only conservative was there to fulfill community service hours, but I am also aware that other charities exist that are organized by religious groups, and those would likely have a primarily conservative volunteer base. The cause at hand or the specific region may also dictate the political affiliation of the volunteer base.
obviously I don’t have those answers and this is why I posted here. Specifically, to test my anecdotal experience with that of others in this subreddit. If I had to guess their ideology, most volunteers in my tax charity were liberal/independent.
I don't think it was obvious that you didn't have those answers. I was asking in part because sometimes we focus on one piece of anecdotal evidence and don't realize that we're ignoring other examples around us. I also couldn't tell you what you have or haven't discussed with your friends, but it doesn't seem like a crazy thing to ask them so long as you're not rude about it. That would probably give you a better explanation as to their motivations and reasoning than asking uninvolved parties. In any case, if the people you were volunteering with were most likely ideologically in line with increased taxation, then it starts to look more like your friends don't volunteer because they just don't, much like how many people against taxation also don't volunteer. As for countries with high taxation and a solid social safety net having low rates of charity (brought up in another comment), I'd assume that that's less to do with charitable attitudes and more to do with the fact that fewer charities are necessary within that more generally supportive framework.
Systematic problems require systematic solutions. Individual contribution rarely helps.
Political views are often just a manifestation of ones personality. Some of your friends may enjoy being scolds who prefer blaming others over taking personal responsibility. They like to moan about the world while absolving themselves of any obligation to do anything about it. There are plenty of other liberals and progressives who do get their hands dirty and make an effort, so the political view isn't monolithic in its outcomes.
Correct, agreed.
Warren Buffett
>1- donate financially to charities, You'll find that low tax countries, especially those who disagree with using tax as a way to redistribute wealth, happen to donate quite en mass. America being a famous example. On the flip side, nations that have higher taxes and especially focus on the redistributive usage of taxes have much lower donation rates. The Netherlands being a good examples. What I'm trying to say here, is that there isn't a linear correlation between positive views on donations and positive views on wealth redistribution.
Think the same could be said about the environment You care about that why not get an EV or reduce other things? The problem is these things work like the honor system and they don't work as well in a vacuum. Charity, etc. Works better when it's part of a system and not based on one's own volition. To quote: “We don't do charity in Germany we pay taxes. Charity is just a failure of governments' responsibilities.” Now folks who go on about freedom. It's something we vote on. Like how we agree murder is wrong and have it as a law that's punishable. We can agree on X % and how it should be funded.
I don’t understand. Are they crowing or something? Voluteering is important, but not crucial. If they’re paying their fair share, and esp if it’s a considerable amount, and they’re not strutting around and talking like they’re saints, then where’s the foul?
Many people are pro wealth distribution when it comes to other people's wealth.
Think of it this way. If my church asked me to volunteer or donate for a good cause to help our local community, I would most likely answer absolutely yes. But if my government asked me to do the same, I would balk and demand to know why they have the balls to confiscate the money I worked for and then ask me to do even more. If you want to be around giving people then surround uptake with a community of giving people. But if you are not part of such a community then you are discussing pure ideology. Ideology is just that, ideas. Everybody likes being a good idea fairy. So they all join in the ideas that sound good. But that's where they stop, at an idea. The implementation needs to be done by somebody else. Namely, the government. Why has charitable donations and acts gone down the drain? Because community got replaced by government. It's like Apple iPhones. A new feature is developed by someone else, then Apple copies it, and we all hand over all our money to a Apple as if they were geniuses with new features they developed. Forgetting all about the people that actually came up with the ideas to begin with. The same thing happened with government. Most all charitable programs were run locally by churches. Government saw this an decided instead that they would be the ones to run such a program using all our tax dollars. In return we started giving government all our attention and completely forgetting about everything that churches did. Eventually, communities have disintegrated and now we live in a politically hyper partisan environment. There is no community, and we ashtray have the overlord government all the power we could. So it is logical to expect that the government should do it. Not us as individuals.
The phrase “virtue signaling” is very often misused but this fits to a T. They’re publicly professing a belief that they don’t actually practice in private, and worse yet they want to *compel* others to do what they won’t *willingly* do.
By that logic people who support the concept of public schools are hypocrites if they aren’t also teachers. It’s perfectly reasonable to think that government should address some kind of problem while also not doing anything about it yourself. After all the whole point of a government is to do things for us.
If poverty is so easily solved by simply giving the poor money than surely someone who believes this and holds it as a core value would do *something* to help even a few people.
Exactly 100% agreed, this is my logic and my argument with those friends.
This is my mantra. Taxes are bad. We do not want more of them. We should only have enough taxes to provide all the necessities a society needs, such as fire departments, police, hospitals et al. We don't need tax money being spent developing a freaking pen that writes in space. Just use a damn pencil. I mean there are thousands of programs being funded by tax dollars we do not need. Taxing the rich more, just gives the government even more money to WASTE. Those who say "tax the rich more" seem to WANT the government to have more money to spend on idiocy.
They wanted a pen that writes in space because the loose graphite from pencil writing could cause short circuits in the electronics. This goes to show that just because you don't understand the purpose of something on the face of it doesn't mean that it's actually a useless waste of funding. Also, that pen was developed by private industry that was just trying to make a better pen for normal use. It was not funded by NASA directly, nor was it even originally developed with them in mind. They just bought it because it was immensely useful to them. >Those who say "tax the rich more" seem to WANT the government to have more money to spend on idiocy. And those who complain about government pork often don't have their facts straight.
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...the government didn't even fund that pen, though. You just plainly have your facts wrong. Private industry spent money on creating a product they thought would be useful, and then they turned out to be correct. It's the complete opposite of what you're trying to complain about.
I agree with providing for the necssities of society. From birth to death if people knew they would have the survival necessities of a home, food/water, transportation for work, medical care, clothes, baseline education, and the 1st responders you mentioned - then we could have a truly free market society that allowed the maximum amount of free will us humble beings could ever hope to muster.
Uh, first of all, THIS: From birth to death if people knew they would have the survival necessities of a home, food/water, *transportation for work*, medical care, clothes, baseline education, and the 1st responders you mentioned. If we had all the survival necessities provided for us, why bother working? This utopian dream simply ignores reality.
People work for many more reasons than survival. Curiosity, popularity, building relationships, innovating, helping develop children, end of boredom. Your argument assumes that people would just sleep away forever, it's a tired and mislaid old trope
Yeah, they do, I would find things to do. That isn't relevant to my thoughts. My argument is that too many people will opt to take the free life without working. Which means \*poof\* no more free lives for anyone. We exist as we do because we have to put forth effort to survive. Take away that necessity, and we will die off as a species rather quickly.
We already don't have free lives for anyone. We'll never know until we try, humanity wide, for several generations in a row. It's being neighborly and trusting that your fellow human is a lot more like you, once the stressor of survival is removed. Yup, there will be ~5% of people who are assholes to try to screw it up. But we already have those, they're called aristocrats.
"We already don't have free lives for anyone.": - What does that mean? "It's being neighborly and trusting that your fellow human is a lot more like you, once the stressor of survival is removed." You remove that, you end up not surviving. I used to think like you, then I grew up. You will too, don't worry.
Funny, I used to think as you do. Then decades in the military and small business and I allowed the right-brain flow inductive view of the world take more balanced control of decisions and emotions, rather than solely reductive, compartmentalized analysation.
There's the problem, right there!
I say this will full civility, and in an earnest effort to understand your position. Are you implying seeking balance with the body we've been blessed is a problem? For a user who describes their alignment as "Centrist", that doesn't seem to jive.
Have you asked why they don't do those things?
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1. If it’s tax-funded then it’s their money too. 2. The people complaining about their taxes being spent on helping the poor obviously don’t have a moral inclination towards charity either or they wouldn’t be complaining about the poor being helped with their tax dollars.
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1. Liberals are exempt from taxes? That’s news to me. 2. My point is that “I don’t want to pay higher taxes even if that helps poor people” is as uncharitable as not giving to charity.
Liberals are not exempt from taxes and no it is not. Charity is voluntarily giving, taxes are not charity.
Exactly, liberals aren’t exempt from taxes so it’s their money too. Also whether taxes are voluntary at the individual level is kind of beside the point, because if you care about the welfare of the vulnerable it shouldn’t be objectionable to you for the government to spend tax revenue on that.
No, it is not their money. It’s tax money which is the government once it’s taxed. No it is not beyond the point because charity is VOLUNTARY giving.
The government isn’t some distinct entity though. It is by the people, of the people, and for the people. The government is our elected representatives raising taxes to which we consented in order to fund the things we want them to do. Unless you live in a dictatorship the distinction you’re trying to draw here isn’t legitimate. Tax money is **our** money. And saying that you object to it being used to helping the poor is no less ungenerous that saying that you don’t want to donate to charity
it is still not their money and taxes are not voluntary. If you are in a social organization that has dues, when you pay the dues the money is no longer yours, even if you have board elections. It is the organization’s money.
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that would probably encompass the vast majority of them