Monday, April 18, 2011

The Major Flaw in American Democracy

Redistributing the Wealth
I have  been thinking about all the Democrat arguments for soaking the rich in order to fund the lazy, illegal, greedy and unproductive.  The real reason for the Dems desire to fund the lazy, illegal, greedy and unproductive is simple:  these folks are their major constituents.  If the Dems fail to bring home a big bag of stolen goodies to distribute to their voters, they would quickly go out of business.  Ah yes, American politics is really all about looting by proxy.  No need to break store windows and carry off TV sets, because "redistributionists" will do it for you in exchange for your vote.

This is the major flaw in American democracy:  when the lazy and unproductive are able to vote themselves a share of your bank account, they will certainly do so.  They will also continue to support the fences that distribute the stolen booty and keep the theft legal and active.

Racist Tea Party Member, 
Opposes Redistributing Wealth
So under American democracy, the trend will be for the unproductive to grow and the productive to shrink, with increasing draconian measures (excessive borrowing, deficit spending, high taxation) necessary to keep the corrupt system functioning.  American democracy seems to me to be unsustainable.  Since the ultimate end of such a system is bankruptcy, poverty and want, it cannot last.  Perhaps it will be replaced by some form of totalitarianism.

There is a solution, however.  People who do not make enough money to support themselves should be disenfranchised, that is, denied the right to vote.  Then they couldn't vote for the crooks who do their stealing for them.  I would further add the proviso that anyone who pays no income taxes should also be disenfranchised.  The idea is to take away the opportunity for theft and the motivation for voting for collectivists and wasteful spenders.  Any spending and tax increases should be felt by everyone who votes.    Then people would truly be spending their own money instead of spending that of someone else.  

In the beginning of this nation, only property owners were allowed to vote (or so I'm told).  We need to return to such a system.  No one should be allowed to use democracy as a tool to mug his neighbors.

Photo sources:  Top photo:  found on the internet.  Bottom photo is from Larwyn's Linx, who got it from Zombie's pictorial of the San Francisco Tea Party rally on tax day.  See it here.

20 comments:

Always On Watch said...

Yes, people vote their entitlements (goodies) -- never mind the cost, particularly if the voters believe that the cost will fall on someone else.

Undoubtedly, property owners are often voters with a greater fiscal understanding.

A little anecdote:

My friend Vicki voted for the Democratic Party in every election up until Reagan. In 1980, she voted for Reagan. I asked her, "Why?"

Her response: "I see things differently now that I own my own home."

She didn't want indigents freeloading off her hard-earned dollars once she owned property.

Always On Watch said...

PS: Yeah. I'm still around, Stogie. Just taking a break from putting up new posts at my own site. I'm not sure when I'll post again regularly. My own sanity and my own physical health have to come first.

Adobe Walls said...

Actually just requiring that voters paid federal income taxes in the past tax year would do the trick.
Virtually all of our Political Class claim to understand that the current course is unsustainable yet remarkably few seem to understand what "unsustainable" means.

Stogie Jr said...

I have been saying this for years. When you show up to the polls to vote you must produce proof of citizenship and your last years tax return.

Anonymous said...

Alternatively, if redistribution and theft are so evil, perhaps the only ones allowed to vote should be the Amerindians. The wealth of the U.S. is built on stolen land, after all, and the building was done with stolen labor. How about each rich person be allowed to keep what they've personally earned by the sweat of their brow? Nahh... on second thought, I'm a humanitarian, & wouldn't want the parasite classes to starve. =)

Stogie said...

Anonymous, you seem to make being "full of shit" into an art form. Only the unskilled and uneducated make their living by manual labor, so by your standards, anyone with a high school education should be taxed until he bleeds.

As far as the poor little Indians, please excuse me while I get a towel to catch the buckets of tears. I think they're doing pretty well with their gambling casinos, don't you?

Anonymous said...

You really must have some soft hands and live in a nice privileged dollhouse, my brother, if you think that a single thing you enjoy comes from anything other than manual labor. The skilled & educated live off of those whom they deny such advantages. As for the Amerindians, while I hate to call a man ignorant, you will apparently be surprised to learn that casino prosperity is a media myth. Only a handful of tribes (east coast ones near massive population centers) have gained significantly from gambling. In any event, if I steal all that you own, and massacre 99% of your people, will it make you feel all better if I let you run a bingo hall? =) You kinda missed the point there.

Stogie said...

Anonymous, please halt with the Indian sob story, my tear ducts can't take much more. Your silly arguments are all based on false premises --
"The skilled & educated live off of those whom they deny such advantages." How have we denied them such advantages? It is a false argument, a leftist truism that isn't true. As for me, I have no problem calling someone ignorant, and you are ignorant as hell, particularly about how wealth is created.

As for the poor, poor Indians, I could care less about ancient history, this is the here and now, and losers will always invent extensive rationalizations as to why they have "the right" to steal someone else's income.

Anonymous said...

"I could care less about ancient history"-- now there's an argument made by a fan of intelligence and education. (That was sarcasm, Stogie; ask me if you need a definition). Typically, the person who's been cheating at the card game is the one calling for the past to be left behind. If the grandchildren of those who had their land and labor stolen now stole it from those who have it, that would be as right as rain. You've probably never worked a real day's work in your life-- that's privilege, my friend, not divine right at work. Don't worry, though; we who care about people and fairness alike won't let you get what you deserve-- just maybe a little less candy then you've become accustomed to. One lesson to start with: wealth is created, regardless of economic theory, in the dirt. It is made by human work on real matter, not by the paper-shufflers in offices, be they libs or cons. You might try getting a man's job sometime, brother. It would open your eyes, and toughen up those soft hands. =) Perhaps on an Amerindian reservation-- two learning opportunities in one!

Stogie said...

Gee, anonymous, so only ditch diggers create wealth then? Bill Gates and Steve Jobs will be surprised to learn that. So will doctors, scientists, investment bankers, inventors, manufacturers, etc, etc.

You embarrass yourself, but if your butt can take it, my foot is available all day.

So basically, your whole argument is that we should give America back to the Indians and return to Europe? Yeah, right.

Anonymous said...

Gates & Jobs would be unsurprised to learn that the computers they sold were made by others-- even out of metals dug by miners, or 'ditch diggers' if you like. The directors of work deserve profit-- but more than the workers themselves? Seems lopsided, eh?
As for the Amerindians, my point is that your premise-- the idea that what people have 'right now' is fair, and comes from a fair process of earning-- is wrong. American wealth came from stealing, both labor & land (African Americans built the South, BTW, however unwillingly-- viva la Union). It is perfectly 'fair' to seek to assure prosperity for everyone, not just those who had the most sticky-handed great-grandparents. As the saying goes, my friend, it's not injustice that stings, but justice. =)

Stogie said...

Anon, your arguments are bunk. Again, you are inventing rationalizations for why the lazy and unproductive have a right to help themselves to the production of others. Who has wealth now and who does not is not a factor of what happened to the Indians; it is a false argument and again, is based on all the false premises you are able to invent on the fly.

As for the Union, see my earlier post "Why the Civil War Was Not About Slavery." And those slaves, which were brought over from Africa by Northern slave traders (who made billions off the trade) consumed about 90% of all the wealth that their labor produced.

Now you are diverting into other subjects that are off the original topic, which was "does B of A pay any taxes," and you have already lost that argument. Again, diverting focus.

Anonymous said...

Does the silly idea that the slaves consumed the fruit of their labors make you feel better about your ancestors? Sounds like you're compensating for a case of the liberal guilts-- quite an irony. If they did use 90% (hah!) that would simply establish that the South was built on the remaining 10%-- they were black hands that built it, either way. After all, if the 'peculiar institution' wasn't built on profit, then it would've been racism for racism's sake-- even worse, eh?
The BOA debate is the other thread. Here, I am proving that your premise-- that American democracy is flawed by inclusion of all people-- is untrue. Laziness didn't enter in to why the Lakota lost the Black Hills-- it was the colonialist's greed. That was only a century and change ago-- don't you realize that poverty in Pine Ridge today can be explained by the massive capital losses the people sustained then? That "Irish Need Not Apply" polices yesterday explain income disparities today? Do you really think all the advantages & privileges you enjoy are equally shared by everyone at birth? For someone frightened of Muslims, perhaps you should spend more time studying the Sermon on the Mount. Gratitude, my friend, gratitude is the mark of maturity. =) You don't have to give everything up, but you do have to share. Most of us learn that in the sandbox-- did you?

Stogie said...

Now you are descending into silly sentimentalism. So the fact that various people once faced discimination or hardships, that means we must now have collectivism? Bunk. The South was invaded, its cities burned, its peoples starved or murdered, and yet I do not insist on someone providing me with a free ride due to what you damn yankees did to my ancestors 150 years ago.

As for Muslims, their religion commands them to murder people. My opinions on them are informed by reading 17 scholarly books on the subject. Yours are just fly-by moralizing based on your own ignorance of the subject matter.

I doubt that the Sermon on the Mount has much bearing on jihad, terrorism, honor killings, genital mutilation, capital punishment for gays, etc. Your comment is silly and irrelevant, if the goal is for us to keep our heads and our freedoms.

I will delete any further comments from you.

Stogie said...

Note to commenters: anyone can have their reasonable say, but trolls who repeat the same arguments over and over and who divert into off-topic subjects will be stopped by deletion of further comments. I trust that anonymous has had more than ample opportunity to make his points, and enough is enough.

Stogie said...

Anonymous, I have answered all of your major points, only to have you repeat them over and over again. I am not protecting my arguments, there is no need: mine are fact based, yours are childish opinion, sentimentality and a collection of false premises.

I trust that your childishness and weak arguments are obvious to anyone who reads them here. We both know I destroyed you in argumentation. Please invite all your fellow airheads to come and read them and decide for themselves.

bro said...

the guy's a freakin moron

Stogie said...

Bro, thanks for stating the obvious! :)

German Student said...

"People who do not make enough money to support themselves should be disenfranchised(..)I would further add the proviso that anyone who pays no income taxes should also be disenfranchised."

A two class society would emerge, the rich population would not care about the needs and chances of the poor... Nations have been there, and as we all know history repeats itself.
What if you are born into poor circumstances? Noone would care about you education and therefore about your chance of a better life!

And what about those that aren't poor by choice(e.g. sick, unlucky)
On another note, here in germany we pay even more taxes and my family isn't poor by any means, yet we accept the necessity of spending, the amount of people who are actually unemployeed because they are lazy is really really low.

Besides that, most of your comments seem really rude,that anonymous guy just stated his opinion, which in my eyes makes much more sense than yours...
Greetings

Stogie said...

German student, of course you think the poor should be able to help themselves to the property and cash of other people...you're a student and students have very low critical thinking skills and zero life experience.

In socialist societies like Europe, the politicians sell the working class into bondage by buying the votes of the unproductive; the result is a broke nation like Greece, Ireland, Britain, and now like the United States. If you are poor and want to work, the very best thing for your life is a robust economy that provides opportunity for your advancement. It most certainly is not a burgeoning government bureaucracy that saps all the life out of the private sector.

As for your opinion on the anonymous troll, it should be obvious that he is an asshole who was merely seeking a reaction and made no attempt at a rational conversation. The fact that you think he makes sense means you have little sense yourself.