From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Mon Jun 24 2002 - 02:23:18 MDT
From: "Mike Lorrey" <mlorrey@datamann.com>
> I've never known a wealthy person to wish more poverty on others...
Olga Bourlin wrote:
> > They may not wish it ...
> You previously said they did 'wish it'.
I meant in a figurative sense, as when rich people or big businesses lie,
cheat,
avoid taxes and exploit their workers (Enron, ImClone, Martha Stewart of
late - granted, she's only under investigation as of now). Remember Leona
Helmsley - "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." The
results, however, are often literal: more poverty for the poor.
>>... but "more poverty" happens when you've got a country
> > (USA) with socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.
> How is it, exactly, that we have
> socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor?
For instance, the poorest workers in the United States are the least likely
to have medical insurance.
Another for instance - corporate welfare. About $100 billion MORE per year
is given in federal subsidies and tax breaks to corporations that what is
given to welfare programs for the physically and mentally handicapped, the
elderly, the blind, the deaf, food stamps and AFDC combined. (In the
mid-1950s corporations in the USA paid 75 cents for every dollar paid by
individual taxpayers; in contrast, in the mid-1990s, corporations paid 20
cents in taxes for every dollar paid by individual taxpayers.)
> they may despise the poor for their lack of capability, luck, or
> opportunism.
>> Despise the poor? ... Many of
>> America's poor are children - others are simply sick, old, demented,
>> maimed, the not-too-swift. Whatever happened to compassion (or just
plain
>> old
> noblesse oblige)?
> Having compassion for someone's bad breaks or circumstances doesn't mean
> you can't think less of them for their apparent lack of ability or
> motivation.
You previously said "they may *despise* the poor for their lack of ..."
> Just as the abolitionists of the 19th century lobbied for
> ending slavery while at the same time being scandalized by the idea of
> interracial marriage, today's allegedly compassionate liberals known as
> the 'guilty rich' may want to redistribute the wealth, but they don't
> necessarily think the recipients of noblesse oblige are in any way their
> equals.
I don't care what today's allegedly compassionate liberals think of anyone
else. How people feel and think cannot be legislated. What is important is
that basic medical insurance (to use one example) would benefit many people,
and that this is something possible to attain.
Olga
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