Comments on: Progressivism

By: payday loans

payday loans — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:35:12 +0000

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By: Jeannetta

Jeannetta — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 01:52:20 +0000

Vincent, I appreciate your comments, however, you are in left field-literally is appears.
If someone makes more, and can afford a gaudyily ornate mansion, then they have a right to it. The person in the one bedroom apartment has ever opportunity to do the same thing if they choose. It’s what we do with our circumstances that makes us richer or poorer.
If for example your one bedroom example is a smoker, then the money that they could be putting by for the ornate mansion is spent on other items. If we include any alcoholic beverages,a lottery ticket or a latte, those costs too are spent on other things than the pursuit of an ornate mansion. You could argue that the person born poor has no chance to “make it” in this world, and I would tell you that that argument is defeatist in attitude. If someone WANTS a better life, they have every capacity to make up their mind to have it, and I do speak from personal experience.
It is not the governments right to take more taxes from me because my husband makes more, so that the people in the one bedroom apartment can have a better life. It’s up to that one bedroom apartment dweller to make his or her life better. Sharing the wealth is a Socialist catch phrase, and leveling the playing field is it’s equally evil twin.
It’s not the roll of government to level any playing field; it’s an individuals responsibility to pull themselves up by the boot straps and make it happen.
Sharing the wealth is nothing more than “legalized plunder” that Fredric Bastiat talked about in “the Law”. You should read that, and also Ezra Taft Benson’s “The Proper Role of Government”; You could learn a thing or two.

By: Vincent Ruggiero

Vincent Ruggiero — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:50:46 +0000

I have a few problems with your interpretation of the language “share the wealth” and “level the playing field.” Though these can be argued as progressive values, to equate them with eglaterianism is a stretch. “share the wealth” does not mean “share the wealth” equally, I’d argue that it instead suggests a redistribution of how wealth is currently being spread to members at different skills levels who collaboratively produce or provide commodities. Certainly an intelligent and hardworking individual — hardwork and intelligence seem to go hand in hand (especially if we consider intelligence as being able to see the world in a clear, practical and unprejudice way)– deserves to earn more money than a less skilled and less hardworking colleague, however the amount made by both should not allow for a difference in lifestyle that puts one in a gaudily ornate mansion with all the trimmings, and the other in a one bedroom apartment who is barely able to afford things like an equal opportunity to education and healthcare. As to your remark on “level the playing field”, all you did was restate that it was “at the heart of progressivism.” I’de argue that “level the playing field” means let people with less opportunity and advantage, be it a private business or a child from a poor and uneducated family, have the means to let them compete — a core aspect of capitalism and individualism, not socialism.