From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.usa,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.perot,alt.politics.election,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: To the Clinton supporters
Date: 10 Nov 92 01:29:38 GMT
Article-I.D.: quake.BxH85G.48B
Organization: Quake Public Access

In article <burleigh.721260295@ogre> burleigh@ogre.cica.indiana.edu (Frank Burleigh) writes:
>In <BxEGLy.Ku2@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:

>>On the contrary, buying the votes of the rich doesn't get you much in an
>>election, since there are not very many rich people.  Furthermore, there is 
>>a BIG difference between allowing people to keep the money THEY earned and 
>>forcing people to cough up money for transfer to others who DIDN'T EARN it.
>>It's the difference between me spending MY dollar and me spending YOUR dollar.
>>Get it?

>Since when do we tax the transfer payments to lower income people?

I didn't say that we did.  Read what I wrote a bit more closely.

>You sound as though you believe most income to low income people is
>unearned...

No.  Most of it is earned from jobs, but every penny that comes from the
government is UNEARNED.  It is a pure and simple matter of injustice
to take money from someone (rich or not) and give it to someone else without
their consent.

>>>IMNSHO, the "trickle-down" theory allowed the upper few percent to gain
>>>about 60% of the income growth throughout the 80's.  

>>Indeed, they were alolowed to MAKE that money.  They didn't steal it.

>None of it?

There are certainly criminals in any population, but I happen to think that
people (even *GASP!* rich people) ought to be considered innocent until
proven guilty.  Your disregard for justice and irrational hatred for people
with more money than yourself disgsuts me.

If you can prove that some individual has stolen something from someone, I'll
be the first one to back you up in advocating throwing the book at them.  If
you want to condemn whole class of crimes without proof then you are a tyrant
and I'll fight you to the last.

>>Would like to see the government forbit people from making money? Do you think
>>that anything other than poverty could result from the government outlawing 
>>economic productivity among the most able segment of the population?

>This is all very interesting, but it seems to me your assumptions are
>completely different than, say, mine and that we'd argue this till
>we're exhausted.  You assume that all that income and wealth that goes
>to the higher income folks results from their talent or greater
>productivity.  

Not all of it, but the only part that is undeserved is that acquired by 
force or fraud.  You can't condemn a whole class for the crimes of a few
individuals who commit them, and I would say that as a whole, the rich are
MUCH less likely to acquire their income by criminal means.  I'll take
this one step further...the property rights of people are a PRECONDITION
of their being productive and gaining wealth.  They are not a check on
wealth, they are it's source.

>In many cases, of course that would be true, i.e., many
>professions (but can we name counterproductive professions or practices
>that bring individual reward but a net bad to society?  Does that enter
>the equation for you?).  

Sure, there are professional thieves, con men, etc. who have a net bad effect 
on society, and I think those folks ought to be punished.  

There are other people who are simply wasting their time according to my
evaluation (say, someone who devotes his life to collecting comic books), 
but such people harm only themselves, and I think I would be a busy body if
I advocated preventing him from living his life as he saw fit.  Furthermore,
unlike you, I don't consider all poor people to be criminal just because some
are.  I don't consider all blacks to be criminals just because some blacks
are criminals.  I don't consider all women to be prostitutes just because some
women are prostitutes.  I don't consider all indians to be drunkards just
because some are.  To hold such ideas is to be a bigot.

>But on the other hand, some portion of those
>gains came because we deregulated or encouraged financial speculation
>that have nothing to do with this country's productivity.

Do you think that the abolition of slavery gave wealth to the former slaves
according to changes in laws unrelated to the country's productivity?
By deregulating an industry, the government isn't doing it any favors, it is
merely allowing them to keep what is already theirs.

>Another pitfall of your making this argument *for you* is that it
>could lead to the conclusion that transfers of wealth should be taxed
>at rates like 100 percent, as Lester Thurow has argued (somewhere),
>since wealth received thusly obviously has no merit beyond the right
>of the giver to transfer it.

I am unfamiliar with that argument.  Could you explain it?

On the face of it though, ownership IS the right to dispose of property.
That applies equally to a bum's ownership of his overcoat as to a millionaire's
stock portfolio.

>Assuming you're a Lib, my difference with you is that I'm not willing
>to assume that high income and great wealth have anything to do with
>a contribution to society that should be rewarded. 

I am most emphatically NOT a Libertarian.  

Our disagreement goes even further than that.  I don't think that you or the
government have any business even considering the question of who should
be rewarded and who shouldn't.  That's for the same reason I don't think
you or the government has any business considering the question of whether 
I ought to be allowed to write this message, or sleep with whoever I choose.
It is none of your business whether I trade with Donald Trump or the 
supermarket down the street.

>Of course you led me down this path which is a little different than
>tax rate progressivity... ;-)

Actually, we are getting down to the (false) principles behind the idea of
state control of private matters.  Not only is progressivity a bad idea, but
it is not even an issue that ought to be able to be considered by the
government.  That's in the same way as whether I ought to be allowed to live 
or speak ought not be a matter of majority vote.  They are my RIGHTS, as is
my right to own property and dispose of it without asking permission from
some bureaucrat.

--Brian