response 26 of 76:

Jul 23 15:06 UTC 2003

That's basically the motivation behind trying to repeal the estate tax.

response 28 of 76:

Jul 23 16:36 UTC 2003

re:  "#24 (gull):  Sometimes it feels like we're steadily moving 
towards a situation where "a small group of very rich and powerful 
people control nearly everything" in the U.S., too."

Yes.  They are called Democratic U.S. Senators.

response 30 of 76:

Jul 23 18:15 UTC 2003

The US is certainly drifting in the direction of a bigger income gap, but the
situation here does not remotely approach the situation in some of the more
seriously fucked up third world nations.  I'd certainly like to see the
Republicans stop pushing so hard to take us further in that direction.

klg thinks Democratic U.S. Senators control nearly everything in the U.S.?
The mind boggles.

response 34 of 76:

Jul 23 21:15 UTC 2003

It is a problem when the people at the bottom of the scale cannot earn enough
working full time to pay for necessary materials and services because the
richer people are making so much money for them.

response 36 of 76:

Jul 23 21:59 UTC 2003

If you have wealth..you deserve it. If you are poor it's because you are
either stupid or lazy....at least in America.

response 38 of 76:

Jul 23 23:46 UTC 2003

re:  "#33 (slynne):  Huge income gaps cause social problems. Or at 
least when you have all the wealth in few hands. If the wealth is 
spread around a lot, things run more smoothly."

And the empirical evidence for this assertion is?????????

response 40 of 76:

Jul 24 00:11 UTC 2003

The parks are paid for by taxes, which are paid by the less than wealthy, and
also by parking fees and fees for using the showers and camping fees.

response 42 of 76:

Jul 24 00:22 UTC 2003

Yellowstone was not.  Which parks were donated?

response 44 of 76:

Jul 24 03:24 UTC 2003

Wealth is fundamentally power.  Democracy is an attempt to distribute
power.  The concept of a "right" sets a minimum on amount of power a
person can have - for example, every American has the power to speak his
or her views freely, or to practice any religion he or she chooses. 
Voting is a device designed to spread the power to choose leaders widely
through the population.

If wealth is too unevenly distributed, the leveling influence of
democracy is overwhelmed.  The constitution may say you have freedom of
speech, but I don't like what you're sayihng, so I'll send my personal
army to shoot you.  You say the police will catch me?  Ha, ha.  That's
what my personal army does for day jobs.  This kind of extreme power
does not exist in the US, but it does in many parts of the world.  Given
that kind of thing, it doesn't matter what you put in your constitution.
Democracy cannot exist.

Capitolism has a strong tendancy to concentrate wealth.  The communist
ideology was invented to try to spread wealth evenly through society. 
That has never worked, and it's questionable how desirable it would be.

But communism is not entirely a failure.  If J. P. Morgan arrived in a
time machine and looked at America today, he'd be shocked at how
communist we are.  Labor Unions!  Welfare!  Graduate taxes!  Horrors! 
Robbing rich to feed the poor!  Communists, all of you!  All western
democracies have taken substantial steps to counteract Capitalisms
tendancy to concentrate wealth excessively.  This is essentially
communist ideology that has been incorporated into modern capitalism. 
There is no nation that you could reasonably call democratic that does
not work hard to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor.  America
does less than most.  Lately we have been steadily cutting back on that.
I consider it dangerous.

Take J. P. Morgan's time machine back to America a century ago, before
capitalism got watered down, and try exercising your constitutional
right to free speech.  You've a good chance of ending up dead or in
jail.   Some people want to go back there.  I don't.

response 46 of 76:

Jul 24 14:53 UTC 2003

There are a lot of libraries due to a very wealthy man.