Shadoe
Sage
True. Pretending that anything other than "every man for himself" is theft is just plain silly.Besides that there's a big difference between "everyone is getting the same amount of money, no matter what they do" and "everyone who earns money pays a percentage of this money to the government which uses it to give less fortunate people enough to survive."
First of all, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot has socialism got to do with anything? Why do people always scream "Socialism!" if there's any thought of community in the world? There are plenty of "socialist" organizations in this country and there always have been, and they work wonderfully. We call them fire departments, police, churches, and so forth.
Your example was utter nonsense. If the A and B students were so upset about getting lower grades, why in the world didn't they help the students with the poor grades do better? THAT is the concept behind socialism, not "everybody's actually on their own but gets screwed together." It's also the concept behind the military. And it works very, very well. The only time it doesn't work is when the only ones involved are the greedy and the lazy and both camps point at the other side to lay blame.
You are talking about handouts. Most poeple don't want handouts, they want jobs. They want decent jobs that give them a little self respect and enough to feed their families. We've got a reported 10% unemployment in the US, and the actual number is probably much higher. According to your beliefs, they are all unemployed only because they're too lazy to work, and that being the case, we should let them - and their children - starve to death. That's a repeatedly-discredited myth perpetuated by people who are selfish and greedy and are, as I posted before, looking for an easy victim. The fact is, most of the unemployed in the US want to work. They may not all be the country's best and brightest, but they want to work and will do what work they can. They don't work because there are No Jobs. There is literally nothing they can do to get a job when there are No Jobs.
When I work, I make big money, and I get taxed accordingly. And I give thousands to charity on top of that. I don't begrudge it, because I make big money. I live quite well, and I don't see why I should spit on the homeless vet looking for a handout. It's not a difficult concept to get. I think anyone who makes more than what I make and thinks they shouldn't pay taxes SHOULD move somewhere else. Seriously. G'wan wit ya! I want them to leave the US. Because when they're gone, we can recreate a US without a ruling elite who blame the poor because they don't have even more wealth.
Outsourcing, yes, is our biggest problem. The guy who made a million dollars last year wants to make two million this year and three million the next. So he jacks up his prices and finds cheap labor and materials. The only thing we get out of it is a country less and less able to support itself. We need jobs, and we need them HERE. Get rid of outsourcing by taxing heavily the companies that do it. Tax imports. Make outsourcing unattractive to the greedy and they'll stop doing it. Restart organizations like those from the New Deal that dragged us out of the last depression. There's plenty that needs doing in this country and plenty of people who want something to do - we need to match those groups up, and we'll get the economy going.
The simple fact is and always has been that a society that has a large percentage of very poor fails. A society that has a large middle class succeeds. When there is a huge gap between the wealthy and the poor, the society fails. History proves this over and over and over. Look at countries even now where there is a large middle class and few on the extreme ends, and you will see a healthy, productive society.