@emilianate When a voyager has no access to instruments of navigation, they depend on what is commonly known among sailors as Dead Reckoning (Deduced Reckoning). It is a way obtaining an objective, in this case a geographical point on a chart, through calculations of time and distance, and of such variables as estimated speed, estimated current direction and speed, estimated wind changes and, most importantly, estimated point of origin. Like life itself, it is rife with cumulative calculation errors whereas logic and sailing experience play the most important part in obtaining success. Nothing is simple about Dead Reckoning, and like life, it is complicated and, when one is offshore and there are no landmarks to refer to and certain signs are ignored, one’s original estimated point of origin can be wrong leading to an often disastrous outcome. One fails to make the objective because their original premise is wrong even if all their other estimations are right.
You mendaciously parrot a willfully ignorant interpretation of an Obama speech where he is explaining the positive influence of societal responsibility on individuals – a responsibility of which our individual freedoms are dependent. It is obvious, if you read the text of the whole speech that by saying, “You didn’t build that,” he explains that nobody in this society, including yourself, got to where they are without parents, and/or teachers, policemen, medical care personnel, mentors, student loans, business loans, etc., etc., all the way down to the mundane infrastructures of a decent power and communications grid, highways, sewers, etc., etc, built and maintained by a society through both taxes and private money. It becomes obvious that what he meant was “You didn’t build that alone.”
Since the origin of the latest tax rebellion, which in my estimation began with Proposition 13 originating out of Orange County, California (promoted by a core group of wealthy men who later became known as the Neo-Conservatives) under Governor Reagan in 1976, there has been a movement to no longer pay taxes to support our infrastructure, our pension programs, and our aid to the poor of our society. As a result, California’s status as the 5th most wealthiest country in the world (per capita GNP 1973) within eight years of the inauguration of this policy dropped to number 27. Governor Reagan took his friends’ trickle down economy idea to the Whitehouse in 1980 and it was instituted nationally by successive administrations of both parties. As a result, today we have an infrastructure that both major parties in congress agree is in dire need of repair after decades of maintenance starvation and an unprecedented 1 in 50 of our children are homeless.
No, they didn’t build it alone. Nor do they maintain it alone. Some of the largest oil companies in the world, our oil companies, pay no net taxes yet receive billions in tax-based government funding. Same with our largest sugar producers—the very largest which are family owned. Farmers all around the US receive tax-based government funding in order to keep our independent food supply alive. Our automobile industry, so slow to adapt to market pressures, wouldn’t have survived without the repeated bailouts of the 1970s and early 2000s. Without the government funded dam projects in the western US, such economic powerhouses as LA, would still be medium-sized city and Las Vegas a desert watering hole with slot machines – to say nothing of the area’s economic boost and second chances those jobs produced during the depression of the ‘30s. And California’s vast government funded aqueduct and irrigation system which helped it become one of the richest pieces of property in the world. Even this form of communication, the internet, began as a government funded program under the DOD (The economic ramifications of a sudden and permanent shutdown of this government invention is incalculable as is the cost of protecting it).
In light of this, your assertion that it is irresponsible to aid the poor of our country, whether by government means or private, is both hypocritical and extremely parsimonious. Your economic philosophy doesn’t work very well because the basic premise is bad. Our greatest resource is our people and to ignore investing in them, to not give them new life blood in this time of need and abuse, is irresponsible. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, nine of the top ten states with the greatest percentage of citizens who are unable to pay taxes due primarily to poverty are solidly Republican, what are referred to as Red States. All of them, except NM, were solidly Republican (Red States) in three of the last four elections. These same states are also among the highest in teen pregnancy and lowest in education.
Here’s the list, with the percentage of non-taxpayers.
1.Mississippi, 44.5 percent.
2.Georgia, 42.5 percent.
3.Alabama, 40.3 percent.
4.Florida, 39 percent.
5.Arkansas, 38.8 percent.
6.South Carolina, 38.8 percent.
7.New Mexico, 38.7 percent.
8.Idaho, 38.6 percent.
9.Texas, 38.5 percent.
10.Utah, 38.3 percent.
This economic philosophy is not a philosophy at all. It is a personality disorder based on willfully ignoring data in order to reach an unreal objective; an obsession. And as in Dead Reckoning, your basic premise, your point of origin, your assumptions about the poor in this country, are in glaring error and if you continue on this course, you and your ilk will remain lost to reality. But the real tragedy is that so many are at risk of drowning with you because of the insane policies you promote.
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