Think about countries where government is NOT involved in utilities and water. Add to that the ego-centric, wealth accumulation-at-all-costs mentality of a good chunk of our country, and then I will invite you to go live in this new place HappySquirrel. So if a kid is born of a drug-addicted set of parents or a single teenager who made a mistake, we just say "Oops. Oh well. Social Darwinism. Sooner you die penniless on the street, the more stream-lined our economic numbers will look."
And by what magical standard are you selecting out of the air that infrastructure law enforcement military education health care = 20% of GDP?
Which countries in the world fall into that category? The ones that have a canoe and a slingshot for their military?
The real world is quite contrary to this and to Mafoo's constant intellectual arguments that come down to "Well, I'm right because I post more than you" and stamp my feet like a little child, which is what this says:
"But don't worry about what I want, you seem to prefer a country where we take from the rich and give to the poor, and everyone gets a good standard of living regardless of if they earned it or not, and the US is becoming just a country."
Take from the rich and give to the poor? What are you, Marie Antoinette? Queen Elizabeth? It's like reading a defense of the serf system from the Dark Ages. It's so elitist and selfish. It just sickens me. You act like I'm proposing that we rob them. If people over the course of this country hadn't paid taxes on their successful lives, the successful of today wouldn't have had the opportunities to make any of that money. It's so egocentric to think that anyone achieves anything in a bubble, solely due to their hard work.
It's the falsity of the "self-made man" American Dream mythos built up over the years. There's no such thing in today's day and age.
So whatever. I know that I will go to work and willingly pay my share, and then I will find a way to give some more, and volunteer to help. Because the idea that there are people dying of hunger outside out doors right now, in a country that has no shortage of food or money or resources or connections, is sickening.
Thranx, I have to believe, is just trying to pick a fight when he says things like "It wouldn't be chaos, the idiots would die quick. The government should be there to protect us from others, not us from ourselves." But Mafoo and HappySquirrel, these are the geniuses and compassionate conservatives that agree with you, so I will let you deal with him. He's one of yours.
Just read that statement. You could write a book on all the things wrong with that statement, intellectually and morally. And that's what you're all arguing for. It's just that he hasn't listened to enough of the talking points to learn how to cover the B.S. in pretty quite yet.
Can't we all just get along and play our games in peace?
