What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
One of my most vivid memories as a kid was watching a bill collector at our door talking with my mother. After some discussion, she handed him a few dollars, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick roll of bills, adding our paltry contribution to his stash. I remember being amazed that any one person could walk around with that much money in his pocket. For all I knew, it could have been fifty one-dollar bills, but it looked like the gross national product of Finland to me, and I decided I wanted to have my pockets filled with a wad like that one day. What I don’t remember doing is hating the guy because we were scuffling for cash and he wasn’t. My parents had apparently neglected to teach me the joys of class envy. Well, what my parents forgot, present-day Liberals have remembered.
As I listen to debates over tax rates and income disparity and the haves, the have-nots and the have-not-enoughs , the common thread seems to be the notion there is only so much money on the table, and anyone who takes more than his “fair” share is making it impossible for others to get theirs. More and more, success is equated with greed and lack of empathy. I have a number of well-to-do (and downright wealthy) Left-leaning friends who share that view and spend their days lecturing the rest of us on why taxes should be higher and why the government should expend a greater effort to spread that wealth around. Apparently those accursed low tax rates (along with their high-priced accountants) force them to keep way too much of their income.
Here’s the suggestion I make to them, and I happily share it with everyone else who’s forced to keep too much of what they earn: simply give the government more. The tax rates are merely legal minimums, and available deductions are not required to be taken. In addition, any of us is welcome to make out a check to the U.S. Government, and someone will be happy to endorse it and deposit in the general fund (or at least apply it to the general deficit). There are, in fact, people who do that, though I’m pretty sure I don’t know any of them.
So Liberals of the world, unite! Figure out what your fair share comes to, and then send the rest to your government. It’ll be thrilled, you’ll be leading by example, and I’m sure our leaders will see that your largesse is re-routed to those who most deserve it. However, just as that bill collector didn’t pass any of his money to my mother, I don’t expect the higher-taxes crowd to jump at this idea.
- Comment (18)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (3)
Comments :
May '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Pat, when I argue with my liberal friends I tell them I would rather be guilty of greed than the selfishness they exhibit. And there is a difference between the two.
If our greed is comprised of wanting to keep the fruits of our own labors, their selfishness has destroyed the foundations of society. Consider their demands - the "right" to guilt-free sex (abortion on demand, "free" condoms, unlimited HIV/AIDS funding), guilt-free family lives (no fault divorce, "free" elderly warehousing and now "free" healthcare), comparative worth pay (guilt-free from having made a bad career choice)... the list goes on and on. The selfishly demand that others provide for them and pay for their mistakes.
Jun '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Warren Buffet complains that he pays less taxes than his secretary ( like I really believe that), then turns around and assigns a great deal of his wealth to the TAX FREE Bill Gates Foundation. Now do I think that the Foundation will do a better job using his money than the Federal Government under the porkish oversight of our righteous legislators? Absolutely!! And for thye very same reason, I wish to have the exact same freedom of assigning my money as does Mr. Buffet.
Jun '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Liberals want your taxes to be higher, but not theirs (after all the good they do for us, that's only fair): Exhibits: Geithner, Daschle, and Rangel.
May '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Maybe you could test that idea on Wheel Pat. Offer the winners the option to turn over their winnings to the Federal government (ok, the other half of their winnings...) to help fund, you know, health care reform.
Jul '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Expecting liberals to voluntarily write cheques to the government (see how keen John Kerry was to pay MA excise tax on his yacht) is to misunderstand the liberal mind. Their burning ambition is to talk about fairness and ensure that others pay their proper share.
Jul '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
"The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like giving a hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enourmously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless."
When a liberal talks about "the poor" with me, I remind them that they are free to be poor. Also, they are free to climb a ladder out.
Aug '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
The cornerstone of Liberalism is economic illiteracy. Without it, Liberalism fails every time. Another is covetousness, envy of others. The third is entitlement; that belief that one of your human rights is the goods of the earth. All three lead to destruction and breakdown, which we see today.
Prosperity is natural, and isn't a zero sum game; where the success of one person robs another. The earth and nature are abundant. As Adam Smith showed, and two centuries of free market capitalism have proven, prosperity can be an ever-expanding cornucopia of riches - subject to the laws of nature and cyclical growth. Shortages of anything lead to high prices, which lead to increased production, which leads to lower prices; as long as the free market is allowed to work unhindered. Liberals always strive to disrupt free markets by over-regulation. They have to in order to grow government.
Since Mark Antony in days of the Roman Republic, the fine art of whipping up the mob to steal from the rich has been honed. But it's theft hiding under the cloak of the law.
The end game is to make people miserable and manipulate them. It's called evil.
Jun '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Following up on EJHill's post:
I've often argued that liberals have more trouble with guilt than conservatives even though they are always lecturing us for all the tragic guilt we supposedly bear via religion, morality, sin, strict upbringing, etc. If you have a real problem with guilt, then you have a psychological need to free yourself from it. If you don't have a problem with it, then a little guilt for your various transgressions is a healthy thing.
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
That is the key point -- and my nomination for Ricochet Quote of the Week. Many left-wing economists assert that "fairness" is a higher priority than growth. But as River suggests, without growth, everything is a zero-sum game, and "fairness" becomes a euphemism for dividing up a shrinking pie.
May '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Gov. Huckabee did the same thing about 9 years ago. He actually created a "Tax Me More" fund for the state of Arkansas, to poke fun at those who thought the state taxes needed to be raised.
(Contrary to insinuations made in smear ads run by the Club for Growth, under Huckabee the state's government taxes and spending rose at a relatively moderate rate compared to the other 49 states.)
Aug '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
We had a conversation with a friend who thinks it's only fair that we all pay more in taxes. She said, "Well, we have so much, and the poor have so little, and it really is unfair. Why not even out that unfairness just a little bit? We could afford to do it. Just a little bit is all I'm asking for." Then my husband asked her, "Well, why not give more money to charity if that's how you feel?" Her answer: "I don't make enough to afford giving to charity."
Jun '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
I can bore you all day with stories about Russia since I just lived there, but one of the key cultural components of that society is that the pie is only one size and that to get anything, you must steal someone else's piece of the pie. Countless times I said, "Why don't you just make the pie bigger?" They looked at me with surprise since they had hardly thought of that. Our liberal brethren do the same. America has always made the pie bigger and now we seem just to be fighting over what the other guy has. It's a horribly depressing sight to see.
Jul '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Dave Molinari I can bore you all day with stories about Russia
I've often said that envy is the Russian national sport. I hope Ricochet's terms of use don't preclude jokes:
An asteroid is hurtling towards Earth. It is a certainty that all human life will be extinguished within days. Television reporters around the planet are asking ordinary folk how they plan on spending their last day.
A Frenchman responds that he will uncork several bottles of the finest wines and disport with his mistress.
An Englishman replies that he will take a walk on the moors with his sheepdog.
A Russian says, "I'm going to kill my neighbor's cow."
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
That's about the size, of it, isn't it Kenneth? All left wing economic thinking can be boiled down to that essential line: Let's kill our neighbor's cow.
The thing is, Pat, I'm guessing that your parents, like countless other Americans, wanted to be rich someday. Or at least wanted their children to be rich. Or, failing that, their children's children. The whole point of being an American is that we're all trying to build something -- either for ourselves or our descendants -- and what's even better, we all expect one day to succeed. Or, at least, we used to. That was something we pointed to and said, "This is American-ness, this optimism and ambition."
Even back before the elaborate social safety net we created, which solidified the taxes-as-charitable-contribution attitude we have today, rich people were always starting these amazing and ambitious charities -- the Carnegie libraries, universities, hospitals. We didn't punish or stigmatize rich folks. And in return, they thought up big, charitable stuff to do.
Aug '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Thanks for the nomination, Adam.
It's doubly ironic that China is proving every day that Adam Smith and our Founders were right; and that Marx, Lenin, and Mao were wrong. Just when the Euro-socialist model is collapsing into bankruptcy, Obama and the crypto-socialists shift into high gear.
It's damned historic, isn't it?
Jun '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Thanks for the Russian joke. It's a classic and depressingly relevant today. Not quite the same as "Keeping up with the Joneses'", eh?
Aug '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
Made me laugh. And it's the perfect symbol for all things Lefty. The Neighbor's Cow Cooperative.
May '10
Re: What's a Rich Liberal to Do?
The self-confident person sees someone who has more, or does something better, and becomes interested in that person-- to learn from them and see what can be gained by observing them. The insecure person sees those who have more or are more gifted, and responds by criticism and, if possible, by harming the person in some way. Most of our leaders are profoundly insecure and thus all is shaped by the politics of envy. It is so tiresome.