What Makes People Vote Republican?

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@ TheBicyclingGuitarist

Which group of super rich are you referring to, the rich in government, the small business people, etc.?

You have to be really careful on the accusations because rich people are a whole spectrum of individuals. You have people like John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, etc. that raise taxes on people yet make themselves exempt from the tax hikes. Then you have people like the President of Chile whom is extremely wealthy yet risked his own political future to get help to rescue those miners. Then you have people whom own small businesses that are just struggling to survive that would fall under the $250,000+ income.

Then you have the fact that a lot of people in the middle class and even some of the rich lost quite a bit of money when the housing bubble popped.

Jesus also never said to abuse the rich, nor did he say the rich were evil.

I would have thought what I said was obvious. I'll spell it out.

A very small percentage of the world's population controls most of the wealth of this planet. The difference in wealth between that group of people and the rest of humanity is exponentially huge. That difference is wealth is far greater now than it has ever been in human history, and it's getting bigger! Is that right or fair, and if you think it is, answer the second part of my question about how can anyone ethically acquire that much wealth in the first place, and is it ethical for them to use that wealth to acquire more power for themselves at the expense of everyone and everything else?

What was that about a camel and the eye of a needle?

The existence of philanthropy does not justify forcing millions to fight needlessly for survival instead of using the state to remedy the problem. By the way, Carnegie said that when socialism is achieved that this would be a new golden age.

@ TheBicyclingGuitarist

I agree with you if you're referring to someone like George Soros whom makes money off of ruining countries.

However, you still can't generalize the super rich either because they run an entire gament.

Personally, I don't see a problem with the wealth gap. I also think it's wrong to say that they acquire more and more wealth when in reality, they are producing more and more wealth. Wealth is not some finite thing where there's only so much to go around. More is produced every day in the private sector. It's when the governement gets more involved that wealth stops being created. Government cannot create wealth, it can only spread around what's already created.

At least George Soros spends his money trying to make a world a better place for everyone instead of just adding to his own power and privileges for his class. You might not agree with his opinion of what would make the world a better place, but apparently he is trying to assist the peaceful spread of democracy and human rights worldwide. To me that is noble even if some of his assumptions or methods may be less so.

There are some multibillionaires who are very philanthropic. I heard recently of a pledge by one to donate half his wealth to charity, and a challenge to others to do the same. In general though, human nature being what it is, those who crave power seem to always want more power even if that means screwing everything up for everyone else. My opinion is that it even screws things up for themselves too, but they are too blinded by greed, lust and pride to see that.

Collapsing the British currency helps promote Democracy how? He is a one world government nut, he isn't remotely noble.

So he had enough insight to correctly predict British currency trends. That doesn't mean he caused its collapse, only that he was smart enough to make money off it. Then he spends that money worldwide helping all of humanity. Seems pretty damn noble to me!

And he's not a commie, athough the ideals of communism are actually pretty close to the teachings of Jesus about sharing everything one has (except of course communism leaves out God, and in real life human greed and laziness doesn't make it practical). The Wikipedia article on Soros says "He [Soros] played a significant role in the peaceful transition from communism to capitalism in Hungary (1984–89)."

That Wikipedia article also has this:
"In 2003, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker wrote in the foreword of Soros' book The Alchemy of Finance:

George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become 'open societies,' open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but—more important—tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior."

So far, the more I learn about George Soros, the more I like him! If he is opposed to right wing nuts like Beck and Limbaugh who, in my opinion, spew many lies, incite fear and inspire hatred, then more power to him!

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 09 Dec 2010, 4:14 pm, edited 4 times in total.

He is a one world government twat, I'm not saying that some of the countries he caused the regimes to collapse in were a good thing. However, he seems to be rather indiscriminate on targetting.

http://www.businessinsider.com/glenn-be ... tz-2010-11

Okay business insider is taking Glenn Beck's reports seriously. Anyways, if he spent half as much effort on Iran or Iraq (when Saddam was in power) as he has in trying to push the US far-left, we wouldn't be having problems with Iran, and may not have invaded Iraq in 2003 because Saddam would have been out of power.

He got in on the new thing at its infancy.

I thought you said that one couldn't make money unless one was rich to start with?

me =/ number5


Also, Bill didn't exactly grow up dirt poor. His father was a lawyer who got his degree through a government program (the GI bill).

then there's also Bill Sr.'s book: Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes

Three things could be at work:

1. Having a leg up by way of family and friends.
2. Being lucky.
3. Being talented.

ruveyn

Yes, but my point is that people can succeed in life, the rich don't want people to stay poor, quite the opposite. It is just they want people to work so they can get out of poverty instead of demanding that the rich pay for them to stay sitting around and doing nothing.

That actually depends entirely on the mindset of the rich guy in question.

Rich people who want power above all else want poor and desperate people - it's easier to exploit them. It's pro-plutocracy politics that have such things as NAIRU - Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment - under which "full employment" is between 5% and 10%, an endorsement of a Reserve Army of Labour there to suppress pay for workers.