Monday, November 22, 2004

Silly Questions

I have a couple of questions to ask the conservatives/liberals that stumble across this little blog.

First to the liberals: what does "pay their fair share" mean? What rate of taxation would be too high, even for wealthy folk? Who has first claim on the wealth one earns (we'll assume honestly), the person(s) who earn it or the broader society at large (represented by the government).? One last question : what the hell does "social justice" mean? I mostly see the phrase used by liberals attempting to sell a government program or arguing for an unpopular court decision, so you get the question.

To the conservatives: given that government is a necessary part of being civilized (no one has made an argument that anarchy works), how do we pay for the functions performed by government? If we have an economy that generates a lot of low paying jobs that do not allow families to fund things that conservatives often consider to be areas of personal responsibility (retirement, private school education for children, health care, etc) what, if anything, can/should be done to help these hard-working people out? For the believers in unrestricted immigration: why is it a good thing (by bringing in large amounts of lower-skilled labor) to increase the competition for jobs at the low end of the income scale, even though there is plenty of competition already?

Just curious.

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