just wasting time.....

luipaardjack:

fishingboatproceeds:

So I own or co-own a few businesses that have experienced varying degrees of success. I am in the educational video business, and the book-writing business, and the merchandise distribution business, and the conference running business, and the making YouTube…

Except that the American government only exists because of contributions and taxes of private individuals.

Government is not t3h ev0lz because it is a tool and it is impossible for a tool to have a moral alignment. But the only reason that government is able to take care of highways and provide paychecks to public servants is because it runs on the money of private individuals.

That’s why “you didn’t build that” is so offensive. What, did the government funds for those projects come from The Money Fairy? Do Congressmen lose teeth and stick them under their pillows for million dollar checks from the Tooth Fairy?

No. The one and only reason that the US government is able to do what it does is because private citizens pay taxes.

All those projects you cited? American citizens paid for them. Government is a tool used to promote societal welfare but it only exists at the sufferance of private individuals like you and me.

The US government did not build those businesses for anyone because they do not have their own private reserve of wealth. Federal employees are contracted by individual citizens through taxes to do the work they do.

For me, I think the argument would be better framed by the thesis, “I didn’t build that all by myself.” While there is no point in saying the government did it for me, there is very much a case for saying they helped me. Be it small business loans or the lower tax rates some enjoy, or simply the roads built to make transportation of product and customers easier, yadda yadda. 

Personally, I get offended when I hear wealthy individuals claim they made it all on their OWN. They didn’t. They did it with the support of those around them, their teachers or their employees or through the aid of government in the form of loans or roads or whatnot. And many of these same people see government or public employees as leaches of the system when without them, government would cease to work. You can have all the taxes providing you with money, but if you don’t have those providing the services, it doesn’t work. 

Perhaps that’s what the OP should have said. Because I think there is very much a case to be made. 

Another problem, though, is that yes, the government is an object and therefore incapable of being moral or otherwise. And yes, without taxes it would cease to work. The thing is, many of those wealthy believe they deserve to pay less in taxes, or to get out of them almost completely, when without the systems in place they wouldn’t have gotten it in the first place. Why do many middle-class families pay more proportionally in taxes than the Romneys, Buffets, and other wealthy, business owners and creators of this country/world? Why do some of them feel that it’s somehow owed to them a smaller tax burden? They create jobs? Well, sadly, a lot of those big companies aren’t creating jobs here, they’re creating them elsewhere. (Yes, I know that Clinton was a big part of why this has occurred, and trust me, that’s a reason I only respect him to a degree.) 

Everywhere you look these days, there are groups that feel that the government already has enough money or that it doesn’t need their money to continue to function. And that’s patently untrue or we wouldn’t be seeing the immense amount drama when it comes to public education and the breakdown of our infrastructure. The Right runs on the idea of less taxes as if that’s the solution to our problems, when in fact that’s in part what’s gotten us into this mess. Bush pushed through his tax cuts/rebates, then put us in the midst of another war that is paid for BY our taxes but did nothing to counteract what he’d done a short time before. 

And I’m definitely not putting all of the blame on the Right. Again, see what Clinton did in the Nineties. But businesses don’t exist in a vacuum anymore than government. In this country, they have been intimately connected for decades. The same way I wouldn’t trust a government that leaves us all to our own devices to sink or swim, I have a hard time trusting a business person who claims they did it all on their own. Because they didn’t, simple as that.

(I have no idea if this makes much sense, and I can’t really pull a whole lot of specific evidence to support my claims as I slam this out on tumblr. But hopefully the point is at least partially clear.)

motherjones:

Father Benedict Groeschel, the director of the Office for Spiritual Development for the Catholic Archdiocese of New York. Via Andrew Sullivan.

And then there’s shit like this. Anyone wonder why the number of people questioning religion is on the rise?

6. “The greatest of all responsibilities is that of the strong to protect the weak.” Ryan closed the speech with an invocation of social responsibility,saying,“The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” However, numerous clergy members have condemned Ryan’s budget plan as “cruel,” and “an immoral disaster” because of its devastating cuts in social programs the poor and sick rely on. Meanwhile,Ryan would give ultra-rich individuals and corporations $3 trillion in taxbreaks.

This shit, right here, is why I can’t help but find the Republican party, at least the version we see the most in the media and online, and, well, in most that I’ve known and/or interacted with. The utter hypocrisy of claiming to give a rat’s ass about the poor and weak in our society, touting these ideas as evidence of their “Christian” morality, while doing the EXACT OPPOSITE. They claim to care, but many of these same people question my morals simply because I reached them by being thoughtful and not because I got them out of a book they say is the root of their beliefs. Not to mention the fact that manu of these people, too many, do not practice what they preach. This above all else is the root of my dislike for the Republican party. Isn’t in your precious nook to not judge, “lest ye be judged?” Along with taking care of your fellow man and something about being humble? It’s fucking pathetic, and more than a little disgusting .

abaldwin360:

obi-wankenblowme:

themattsmith:

scottfriday:

The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth.

(and for people with tumblr savior: politics, republican, democrat, conservative, liberal, progressive, president, presidential. hey, i tried to be accommodating.)

Ruh-roh

How this is on Fox News I have no idea, but it’s pretty fantastic.

Damn, no comments on the story at the site, that would have been priceless.

You know shit gets bad when FOX is ripping into you. Fucking beautiful.