Quote:
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce
I’ve no obligation to take care of you, nor you, me...
They used to care about their community and their country...
But now,....It’s me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, gimme, gimme, gimme, more, more, more.
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Bruce, I understand that you strongly disagree with my political outlook, but with the greatest of respect, don't you see the extreme dissonance in your attitude? Either you give a damn or you don't.
If you wanted to create a strong country, one where it was possible to dream dreams and with enough hard work and courage, make them possible, where would you begin? Wouldn't it be with the PEOPLE of that country? A country's people need to be educated enough to make intelligent decisions for themselves and for their communities and their nation. They need to be healthy so they can lead productive, useful lives. They need to share a sense of purpose and unity which will allow them to pull forward together, rather than pull apart into fragments alone. They need to share a sense of values about justice and dignity and honor and self respect.
Like it or not, we are all inter-connected and we all depend upon one another. This is not socialism, this is how the human animal evolved - to be a part of a society and not a lone wolf howling in the wilderness. It is also pragmatic. No man can be all things for himself alone.
If I am childless, why should I have to pay taxes that will help put my neighbor's children through school? If for no other reason then my own good, that's why. The neighbor's child will grow into the adult who gives me medical care or repairs my car or becomes the minister at the church I attend or repairs the lines which carry electricity in my home. What a large return on such a relatively small investment! What a bargain, I'll take it! If you don't want it, go live in a shack somewhere without electricity and do without medical treatment and in your solitude curse God, and die. But don't force me to bear the burden of your foolish choices.
Why should I pay taxes to insure that we have universal health care in this country? If for no other reason than my own good, that's why. The man whose medical bills my taxes help pay will be rehabilitated after a stroke or a heart attack and he will go back to his job paving the roads in my town or fixing my roof or discovering a cure for an illness that I have come down with myself. That man's year's of training and education won't be tossed aside because he has no doctor to treat him and without medical care, he can't work. What a great return on my investment! What a bargain, I'll take it! If you don't want it, go live in your house with no plumbing on a rutted out dirt road and die slowly of your own chronic disease. But don't force the consequences of your own poor choices on me.
What segment of our society gives the least and takes the most? It is not the poor of our country, but the wealthy with their endless tax breaks and insider deals and their condos in Aspen and their expensive gas guzzeling cars and their exclusive gated communities. THESE are the Americans who cry, "More, more, more," and "me, me, me." The black school child who wants a decent education is not the force which is bringing America to its knees and taking tax dollars which give no return from your pocket. The one who is robbing you blind is the corporation with its off shore banking practices, its tax dodges that it got via its very own paid congressman, and the jobs it outsourced away from your community and off to some third world country. The man who needs insulin for his diabetes is not your enemy, but the man whose income puts him in the top 5% of the nation's most wealthy and pays fewer taxes than you do is.
Why is it that so many conservatives who shout their patriotism so loudly, seem to hate the very people who make up the country whose flag they wave? I believe in the American people. We have a strong work ethic, we go to church and school, and we are by and by large honest. The people of this country have been decieved into believing that their fellow Americans are the enemy. Nothing could be further from the truth and yet, nothing else could better serve to further the ends of those few at the top who do not cry "More", but merely seize it from our unresisting hands instead.