Posted By:
runscottbut I still find it the preferable place to be. I don't agree that the rich always screw the poor, but I understand that is a fundamental idea of liberalism and I won't convince you or Julie otherwise;however, if I were to agree with you, then we would have to come up with a way that the rich could either be destroyed or made to stop screwing the poor (in which case we would simply have "un-screwed poor"). I prefer that we let them (the rich) live since you have to have producers as well as users, and some of the rich are at least producing, while none of the welfare cases are. And if you destroy the rich, the poor aren't going to disappear, they will just put their hands deeper into the pockets of the "non-poor" (the middle class in such a fantasy).
There have been several experiments in pure socialism (no rich people and no poor people). The result was very predictable - there was no real incentive for people to work harder than "average", but there was an incentive for people to work less and consume the fruits of everyone elses' labor. So, even without rich people, you still had a strata of society that prefers to be lazy and accept hand-outs.
There was also an experiment several years ago where McDonalds built shelters where the poor could stay and get cleaned up while looking for jobs (usually minimum wage). There was no interest. You see, it involved eventually going to work.
Oh, and the crooks at Enron should get life.
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