Re: Down with Democracy?

From: Brian D Williams (talon57@well.com)
Date: Fri Oct 05 2001 - 09:56:46 MDT


>From: Charlie Stross <charlie@antipope.org>

>>On Thu, Oct 04, 2001 at 02:07:54PM -0400, Mike Lorrey wrote:
>>
>> The poorest 51% always vote to tax the richest 49% as much as
>>possible, and give themselves as many tax breaks as possible.

>Firstly, many of the low paid don't vote at all. (Looked at any
>demographic studies of voting patterns lately?)

Actually here they do vote, and vote overwhelmingly democratic.
It's why we've been experiencing a form of extreme democracy, i.e.
strict majority rule.

>Secondly, if that's the case, where in hell did your current
>government get the idea of cutting inheritance tax -- which
>massively, disproportionately, benefits the ultra-rich -- from?

Actually anyone with significant equity benefits, one of the
largest supporting groups are family owned farmers.

>You're talking out of your arse, Mike. The poor are marginalised
>from the political process and don't have the roubles to buy the
>lobbyists they need to make their opinions heard. Never mind
>voting to fuck over the rich: they can't even stop the rich from
>fucking over _them_.

The top 5% of wage earners in this country pay 50% of all taxes
here. So the "rich" clearly aren't the ones in charge.

Brian

Member:
Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
SBC/Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:11:13 MST