NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/ba/politics/7861

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-22 | 7.2 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!phil
From: [e-mail] (Phil Ronzone)
Newsgroups: ba.politics
Subject: Re: "homophobic suspects outrage net"
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 22 Dec 92 05:41:09 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Generally in favor of, but mostly random.
Lines: 155

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Marc Salomon) writes:
    >Because they just became wealthier and their kids will come
    >into that wealth some day.

With the confiscatory inheritance taxes and estate taxes and other such
fascist theft system, that is actually not very true. But, if it were,
so what? What tin god died and left YOU in charge of other people lives???


    >The WWII generation adults had a state-sponsored system that
    >made it easier than any time since the land was stolen from
    >the natives to own a house. That system started to fall apart
    >as the post-war economy did around 1968-72. This was not
    >Nixon's "fault," rather a structural weakness in the post-war
    >economy (not to mention the oil shock) caused the economy to
    >grow much slower, a problem which has not been solved
    >rationally (N.B. the debt orgy of the 1980's as an insane
    >attempt) to date.

Stolen from the "natives"? Which "natives"? The current Amercian aborigines,
which wiped out the previous generations of aborigines, which wiped out
the ones before them?

But surely, from the tenor of your, uh, "politics", you must approve of this.
Most American aborignal tribes placed the status of women below those of
dogs -- essentially property. And surely that couldn't be allowed to exist?

    >When the music stopped, those who made it to a chair didn't
    >want to share, for whatever reasons, so they tightened their
    >hold what was theirs. This is where prop-13 came in. The
    >problem with prop-13, like most of Reaganomics, was that it
    >may have been an intellectually defensible position to call
    >for decimating government benefit programs for the poor due
    >to their dehumanizing, disempowering tendancies, as is now
    >vogue in conservative circles (or other, less noble reasons)
    >it was criminal to eliminate the safety net without proposing
    >and implementing alternative means of economic support that
    >the economy in and of itself was incapable to providing.
    >(i.e. jobs)

Since I rather doubt that you have given every single cent of your
income (above bare subsistence) to the poor, what you are doing is calling
for the use of force to make other people hand over their money to
yet other people, to make you feel good. What a coward -- at least
Robin Hood did it in person, and supposedly only took back what had been
unjustly stolen in the first place.

    >>Obviously, you were not around during the period, since your
    >>comments indicate an abysmal lack of insight concerning the
    >>politics of the era. It was during the Carter administration
    >>that property values in California (and elsewhere) went
    >>crazy. Elderly retirees who thought they were secure in their
    >>paid-for homes found themselves out on the street when,
    >>through no fault of their own, taxes skyrocketed.
    >>
    >How many were actually kicked out onto the street?

The manager of the rental place I lived in for one. They had to sell their
house. They bought in in Encino in the late 1940's for $4,500. Their tax bill
right before Prop. 13 was $6,000! They had no savings, and were living on
Social Security, thinking they could make it since their house was paid for.
They had to sell their house, which gave them enough money for maybe ten years,
at which point, they'd now be faced with living on Social Security AND
trying to make the rent. So they went to work as apartment managers.

What a ripoff.

    >Too many Americans believe that the omnipotent president
    >controls every aspect of the socio-economic situation and
    >should get kudos or blamed for what happened on his watch.
    >Carter didn't raise property values. They rose because the
    >economy couldn't generate profits fast enough, and
    >real-estate was a fast way to generate some cash.

Huh? What a nonsensical statement. Property values go up because property is
a very finite resource -- and more and more people, at the time, wanted to
live in areas (in which the property values went up). You have a negative
understanding of basic economics (i.e., a lot of wrong ideas).


    >Insights such as the ones you present are inherently limited,
    >as you fail to acknowledge the redistribution of wealth that
    >rising property values meant. Never have you mentioned any of
    >the kids who are starving for education as the teeth of
    >prop-13 start to actually sink in.

What kids? The victims of our Professional Edukationoligists?


    >First of all, you are getting rich...
    >....
    >We just have to live with a paralyzed government that
    >can barely meet its essential social responsibilities....
    >>...
    >I have contempt for the selfish who hoard in a world full of
    >scarcity....
    >I know of no other legislation in the history of
    >the US that shifted wealth sans responsibility from younger
    >generation to older generation.
    >...
    >_We_ deserve a society that tries to figure out a solution
    >that preserves the dignity of all parties involved instead of
    >hoarding wealth to one side. We deserve intellectual
    >discussions of political matters without these racist scare
    >tactics.
    >....
    >Is the dignity of the retiree with a home somehow more
    >substantial than that of the homeless person that he steps
    >over each day or the child who gets a pseudo-education
    >because the school can't afford books or the 25% of the
    >African American population in jail for lack of opportunity?

Wow - what fascist agit-prop. So you don't have yours and are pissed off
about it.

Too bad.

The United States was formed on the basis of the State existing ONLY to
protect the individual in his pursuit of happiness.

We don't exist for the State.

Nor do we exist for other people.

We are not slaves. Your need has no claim on me. Slavery is immoral.

I've met a lot of homeless, addicts, and such. I've yet to meet one that
didn't bascically his/her self in the mess they were in. The largest
consumers of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs are the "poor".

Generation after generation of all types of people came to this country
and lifted themselves up from poverty. Irish, Italians, and now the Asians.

Our poor of today would seem fantastically wealthy to people 200 years ago.

We will always have poor -- by definition.

If you want to have even a shred of intellectual dignity, please assert
that every single dollar and asset you have, above utter bare substenance
goes to the poor of the world. By your terms, you should be ashamed to
own every a bike if there is even one child starving soemwhere in the
world.

Do you have a bike? A car? A TV? A stereo? Skis, rollerblades? More than
3 meters of living space? Hmmm?

Why, how selfish of you .....




--
I believe Gennifer Flowers.

These opinions are MINE, and you can't have 'em! (But I'll rent 'em cheap ...)