Marine gets body armor for Christmas

[Manedwolf]

This is plain and simple class warfare. So you are saying we should make the tax cuts permanent for everyone except the top-2%. So the top-2% should just pay more right, even though they already carry a majority of the tax burden. The top 10% of income earners in this country generate somewhere in the rhelm of 35% of the governments tax income.

Yet, I don't see you complaining about the fact that almost 50% of people in this country pay no income tax. A lot receive credits and other forms of subsidies which actually put them on the dole from the federal government (welfare = taking more than you put in).

Go re-read Marx and see what a progressive income tax system leads to, and if you feel as though you're not sacrificing enough, then feel free to add more to the pot. Just quit suggesting that the government hold a gun to someone elses head and take their money.

If it were not the case that the average large-company corporate CEO now makes FOUR HUNDRED TIMES the average annual salary of the average worker (and by average, I mean the 50k range), then that'd be right.

But Horatio Alger is dead, sorry. It doesn't matter how hard you work, you can NOT ever get to that level...you have to be born with the right family connections already in place. Skewed wealth of THAT level of inequality isn't capitalism...it's feudalism. And the serfs didn't question THEIR lords and masters in the castles, either.

I do.

(And also keep in mind that it's ultra-rich celebrities and such, with their expensive personal bodyguards, who often want to take guns AWAY from everyday people who can't afford bodyguards! Class warfare? No kidding!)

 

[MechAg94]

If it were not the case that the average large-company corporate CEO now makes FOUR HUNDRED TIMES the average annual salary of the average worker (and by average, I mean the 50k range), then that'd be right.

But Horatio Alger is dead, sorry. It doesn't matter how hard you work, you can NOT ever get to that level...you have to be born with the right family connections already in place. Skewed wealth of THAT level of inequality isn't capitalism...it's feudalism. And the serfs didn't question THEIR lords and masters in the castles, either.

I do.

(And also keep in mind that it's ultra-rich celebrities and such, with their expensive personal bodyguards, who often want to take guns AWAY from everyday people who can't afford bodyguards! Class warfare? No kidding!)

Bull! The large majority of millionares in the US did not inherit their money. You can work your way up to that level, but you probably won't get there working for someone else. One day maybe I will.
I heard an interview a few months ago about a kid from a poor family in some city who was a millionaire by age 14 or somewhere close to that. It was done through ability and hard work. Sure, most people won't do it, but it can be done.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I've got a better idea. Why don't we empty out the Congress, slap those courageous talkers into uniform, and send them off to fight land wars in Asia with flimsy armor? If there aren't enough elected misrepresentatives to go around, maybe we could empty out the White House, too.

 

[CAnnoneer]

The large majority of millionares in the US did not inherit their money. You can work your way up to that level, but you probably won't get there working for someone else. One day maybe I will.

+1

I am pretty certain one day I will be a millionaire, while I started from nothing.

However, Manewolf is ultimately right that there is a very strong class-struggle element involved in current gov corruption and the consistent and incessant attack on our civil liberties and the constitution. To people like Bush and Kennedy, the rest of us are nothing but unwashed serfs even if we do work our way up to a few million.

Another way to think about the same issues is to note that a measure of society's age and decadence is the level of nepotism and hereditary power/wealth. I can't see how anybody might find the Paris Hilton's of today to be identical to the Andrew Carnegie's of yesteryear. The emaciated scions born in privilege are so disconnected from reality that they would cause horrendous damage when they assume their "rightful" place in the pecking order. Btw, that is one of the major reasons GWB is so reviled...