AOC: A Society With Billionaires Cannot Be Moral

[OneSheep]

Jesus said render unto Caesar. He didn’t say force others to help the least of His children and pretend it is compassion. Helping His children is what we render unto God.
You continue to conflate taxation with coerced “charity “.

Bro, its only “coerced charity” if you label it that way. Obviously, to you it is totally uncharitable, and does harm, I think that is a very understandable position. It’s taxes, plain and simple, and you disagree.
And yes, Jesus never advocated “coerced charity”, but there was probably a bit of coercion involved with the temple tax. I can cite coercive effort on the part of our church in the 20th century for people to put donations in the collection basket. Doesn’t mean its right. Look at Acts 5:1-10! That’s some pretty hefty coercion going on there, and that money was supposed to support the Church community.

Was it charity? Was it taxes? Whatever it was, it was coerced, and the claim is that the Spirit was involved. I think not; it looks like just plain human compulsion for justice.

Before I answer this,you answer mine. Do you have a source that shows evidence that a politician has sold influence, changing his or her vote based on a donation?

It would take some work, but there are bound to be cases out there. What I am saying is that that isn’t the way influence is done the vast majority of the time. Candidates are groomed to be in step with the lobbyists before they are in office you can see in the articles I sent. Our local congressman is a perfect example. He had his mind made up to support anti-BDS legislation before he came into office, and there was plenty of money for his campaign to make it that way.

I certainly don’t donate to a candidate whose platform I disagree with hoping to change their vote…

Well, corporations try, and if the guy in office doesn’t accept their money and vote their way, then they support the person running against them next go-round.

The exact same power as a legitimate citizen vote. And their is illegitimate.

Voters don’t have much power, special interests have the power.

I know many non-citizens here in the US. None that I know vote. They stay away from anything that looks like government.

this is silly

It’s not silly, its real:

Anti-BDS bill advanced by Senate, U.S.-Israel security ties boosted | The Jerusalem Post

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, supports both measures and is actively recruiting Democratic votes for its bipartisan passage.

www.jpost.com

 

[Trader]

Jesus said render unto Caesar. He didn’t say force others to help the least of His children and pretend it is compassion. Helping His children is what we render unto God.
You continue to conflate taxation with coerced “charity “.

Do you remember the parable of the Bad Samaritan who saw the victim of of robbers and organized community protesters to tell Caesar to take care of him while the poor man bled to death? OK, maybe that was a bad translation.

I too get tired of the social justice warriors telling me that someone else needs to do something. I am sure they would be shocked if I told them that I have a greater obligation to my family than I do to their families. They would be outright hostile if I said they were not doing enough for their own families. I might even get worked up enough to say that parents owed their children food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and education, with the biggest part of that education being a good example.

 

[JonNC]

Well, corporations try, and if the guy in office doesn’t accept their money and vote their way, then they support the person running against them next go-round.

Again, source. You’ve provided no evidence that elected officials have changed their votes in response to a campaign donation.
You accused the Supreme Court in this way, as well, without evidence.
Otherwise, lots of people threaten to change their support to an elected official’s opponent if they don’t change their position. It is called representative republican government.

Voters don’t have much power, special interests have the power.

I’m a part of a special interest. I’m a voter. A special interest is simply a group of voters who band together to promote their common interest. One can use it as a pajorative, but it is a necessary right in a representative republic.
And guess what? They all try to influence government. Good for them.

I know many non-citizens here in the US. None that I know vote. They stay away from anything that looks like government.

Then you’re not paying attention.

It’s not silly, its real:

This is your proof that Israel controls our government?
I oppose attempts to prevent people from boycotting
It is silly to claim Israel controls our government. Putin would never allow it.

 

[Annie]

Here’s an interesting article.

What makes it interesting to me is–aside from informing us that Medicaid for all would cost 4 or 5 times the military expwnditures-- that it outlines how Democrat nominee wanna-bees are offering free stuff to potential voters.

You are criticizing those who give money to politicians, but what do you think of politicians who offer money to voters? Especially when the money they are offering is not theirs but yours?

 

[John24]

aside from informing us that Medicaid for all would cost 4 or 5 times the military expwnditures

And also save the country $200 billion a year.

 

[Annie]

How would that work?

And does one typically spend 100% in order to save 7%?

 

[John24]

How would that work?

The cost of Medicare for All is projected to be $32 trillion over ten years. The same projections peg the cost of our current healthcare system at $34 trillion over ten years.

 

[JonNC]

Annie:

How would that work?

The cost of Medicare for All is projected to be $32 trillion over ten years. The same projections peg the cost of our current healthcare system at $34 trillion over ten years.

Get the government out of the way, allow large associations across state lines that can negotiate with numbers to lower prices from providers and insurance companies.
But be that as it may, anyone who thinks the $32 trillion over ten years is reasonable hasn’t checked their history.

The cost of Medicare is a good place to begin. At its start, in 1966, Medicare cost $3 billion. The House Ways and Means Committee estimated that Medicare would cost only about $12 billion by 1990 (a figure that included an allowance for inflation). This was a supposedly “conservative” estimate. But in 1990 Medicare actually cost $107 billion.

The Medicare Monster

A cautionary tale

reason.com

If history is any barometer, and it usually is, that $32 trillion will be dwarfed by the reality. And lets not forget that the general government can’t balance it’s budget now, even with ever increasing record revenues. $21 trillion of budget debt, and well over $100 trillion in unfunded responsibilities, and one can see that Medicare for all, even at the bare minimum $32T, is unaffordable without destroying the economy.
It will cost too much, queuing and rationing will be mandated, and the quality of care will disintegrate, making the VA look like high quality.

 

[John24]

Column: America is falling out of love with billionaires, and it’s about time

Our emerging political debate over taxing the rich seems to be getting bogged down in details — how high a tax rate, should we tax income or wealth, etc., etc.

www.latimes.com

 

[JonNC]

Column: America is falling out of love with billionaires, and it’s about time

Taking money from people simply because they have it is good for fascistic tyranny.

 

[John24]

I’m quaking in my boots!

 

[JonNC]

I’m quaking in my boots!

I’m not quaking at all. We saw this kind of thought process in the last century. We know what it is.

 

[petra22]

Jesus told his people to pay their taxes, even when though they didn’t believe in the government at all, it was a persecuting government, an occupier!

Jesus told the people to give to caesar what belongs to Caesar and the God the things that are God’s. If money is YOUR God, keep the money and give Caesar his taxes. If the Lord is your God, you will give him all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength… He doesn’t need money…

 

[petra22]

A government, a nation, that allows other nations to buy off its political leaders has no “constitution”.

Say it again, OneSheep!

 

[petra22]

How do you know people are making bad choices. Perhaps, they are simply folks who are struggling and could use some recourse and aid. And maybe some people are desperate or in difficult situations. Additionally, some may make bad choices but perhaps it’s because they don’t know any better (cycle of poverty) and could benefit from a hand up?

Am I day dreaming? Didn’t everyone agree that the states should set aside money for pre existing conditions and people having hardship cases with medical coverage? (I think that’s medicaid???) Didn’t this happen when the congress voted to do away with the mandate that you MUST have insurance???

 

[JonNC]

Column: America is falling out of love with billionaires, and it’s about time

From the article, a quote:

The love of money as a possession … [is] a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semicriminal, semi-pathological propensities.
-JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1928)

Two points:

1. note the date, 1928. The ultra wealthy are different people today than 90 years ago. One of the false impressions progressives like to create is that the top 1% or 5% is a stagnant number. It is not. Most of the very wealthy we think of today created their own wealth. They have wealth that did not exist in 1928.
2. it is such irony that a quote essentially condemning a love of money is imbedded in an article promoting a love of other people’s money.

 

[Annie]

That seems very odd. If we cover everyone we will pay less than when we cover only a percentage?

And that’s a projected savings of $2 trillion, not 200,000,000.

 

[Maxirad]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michael-moore-donald-trump-midwest_us_5c557423e4b087104753c97b

 

[John24]

The ultra wealthy are different people today than 90 years ago.

I would expect so, most people alive 90 years ago are dead.

it is such irony that a quote essentially condemning a love of money is imbedded in an article promoting a love of other people’s money.

It is condemning the love of other people’s money displayed by the ultra-wealthy who leech off their workers. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if wages had kept pace with worker productivity, but they haven’t for over 40 years so we have to revert taxes to what they were earlier in the century to correct that disparity.

That seems very odd. If we cover everyone we will pay less than when we cover only a percentage?

One risk pool versus many. It’s how countries much poorer than the U.S. provide universal healthcare.

And that’s a projected savings of $2 trillion, not 200,000,000.

Which is how I got to “$200 billion a year.”

 

[abucs]

Generally speaking a billionaire (or his family) is someone that has created so much economic development in society that the rest of the community have been persuaded to create billions of dollars worth of economic advancement themselves just in order to give it to this person in exchange for what he has created and offered to society.

Billionaires based on production and business skills are signs of a moral society and one that has offered the rest of society a reason to take part in the goodness of the capitalist system.