luinil said:
This is how I see these things: When the government takes money away from someone rich and gives it to someone poor, Democrats/liberals call it compassion.
When Republicans try (and often fail) at keeping the government out of the pockets of individuals so they can do what they see fit, including donating money, Republicans call that compassion...
Now I don't know about you guys, but I don't see how the police force of the government forcefully taking away from one person and giving to the other person is compassionate. There is no compassion is forcing someone to be "compassionate." |
This is an extremely one-sided, not to mention short-sighted view. I don't mean to insult you, so let me explain.
The central idea behind capitalism and free markets is that they make use of inherent differences in human ability. Person A is better at some task than person B, and B is better at other tasks than A. So if A focuses on making item 1 and B on item 2, they can trade and end up with more or better items 1 and 2 than if they each had to make their own. The corollary to this is that what's good for one person is good for everybody, and what's bad for one person is bad for everybody.
So let's see how this plays out in a more real-world example, and I'll stick with health care since it's already been brought up in this thread. When someone (say Bob) is down on his luck, say he gets sick or needs an expensive operation, he takes a hit to his financial well-being. Perhaps he even loses his job because of so much time missed from work. Then they can no longer afford to buy things. This hurts the companies that produce those things. It also hurts the company he works for, since they no longer have his expertise available to them to produce those quality goods.
We can help Bob out by paying for part of his operation and giving him some money to live on while he recovers, so that he can pay his bills and not lose his house, and then Bob can get his job back or get a new job and return to being a productive member of society again, and continue producing and consuming goods. So basically, when we tax the rich, their taxes are helping to keep lots of Bobs on their feet, so that they can keep buying the goods that keep the rich people's profits high.
This plays out in all kinds of different ways; health care and welfare are just two examples. Another example might be highway maintenance, to give all the Bobs roads to drive on so they can get to work and produce, and get to the stores and consume. Or how about medical research grants to keep all the Bobs healthy, or social security so the Bobs can continue to consume after they retire. It all comes back to the central idea of capitalism: What's good for one person is good for everybody, and what's bad for one person is bad for everybody.
Now, one Bob getting sick or getting laid off or losing a bet on the stock market isn't going to ruin an entire company, but when it happens to enough Bobs at the same time, it can have a devastating ripple effect on the economy. You may remember a little something from history class called The Great Depression. Most of these government programs were put into place as a reaction to The Great Depression, to provide a safety net that would help cushion the blow of sudden changes to one's income, protecting individuals and, by extension, the economy as a whole.
All of this isn't to say that there aren't problems with certain specific welfare programs, specific health care programs, specific highway construction earmarks, etc. But to generalize and say that it's all about taking money from rich people and giving it to poor people is entirely missing the point. When the programs work the way they're supposed to, the rich people and poor people share the benefits.
