The USA, along with all industrialized democracies already does this to some degree. It is the “progressive’ tax system. Richer people of means generally pay higher income taxes than poorer people do, all things being equal. That by definition is income redistribution.

I know, as I said I know most people lump taxes into this redistribution. However, as I was trying to point out, the way Obama is speaking, this money will go directly to certain people, not the nation as a whole. I don’t like taxes, I’m American, and as someone once said on this forum, tax evasion is out national pastime lol. But I do understand that they are a necessary evil.

However, we obviously have things that need to be payed for now, let alone other necessary things. We do not need new programs in order to “help” people. As has been shown in this country, the majority of these programs never end, for the people become dependents of the state. Thats part of my personal problem with this whole cockamamie idea of taking from the rich to help the poor. Also, who determines whose rich, and who will be entitled to these proceeds that have been taken/stolen? I ain’t rich, but I know I won’t get a penny, ok, maybe a few. Problem is, my customers may be considered rich, if they don’t have their disposable income, how are they going to pay me? So who knows, I may be getting screwed 3 or 4 times.

I think my previous post explains my position the best, I just felt like I had to reply again, sorry for taking up so much space on the forum, I don’t like to feel like I’m the only one talking and no ones listening lol :p

I don’t think your wrong about Bush and his bailout, along with all the Democrats in congress. Hell, the only thing that stopped it initially were the House Republicans, until they put in an extra $ 200 billion to “buy” people. The all friggin SOBs as far as Im concerned, like I said my vote is nothing more than a speed bump, that is all.

Ok to put it simply, no one candidate has come out and explicitly said they are for common ownership of anything. However, as I said, I am speaking of the “American style”. Maybe, I should be using another term, I’ll have to look into that.

However, this movement that I refer to is nothing new. It has been slowly but gradually building steam, especially since the turn of the century (the last one, not the last 8 years lol). From Wilson, FDR, to my personal buddy LBJ, there has been a movement to “inform” Americans the state is the only answer to all of their problems.

Wilson did it during WWI with the wartime economy, and many many people looked at that and thought if it worked then, why can’t we do it all the time. However, I was never taught in school about the secret police Wilson had to quiet dissension, I wonder why?

FDR and his “braintrusters” looked at the wartime economy of WWI and thought it would be a good way to get the US out of the depression. Never mind the fact that before FDR was elected a good number of men who would become his “braintrust” would travel the world and on seeing Soviet Russia, were in complete awe and felt left out of this “great experiment”. Mind you, this was before the depression had even occurred, these people wanted total control, that is all. And even after FDR consolidated considerable power, politically and economically, and had his crack team running the entirety of the country, the depression still didn’t subsided until the war.

And then theres LBJ, with his “Great Society” of social reforms and further programs. Interestingly enough, after an ungodly amount of money has been spent on this society, the very people it was to help are in the same situation they found themselves in 50 years ago, many even worse.

The fact is, I am just a 27 year old, lower middle class white guy, and for some reason, no one seems to speak my tune. Any programs any candidate initiate will not effect me, except in my wallet.

A little quote:

“As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C will do for X, or in the better case, what A, B, and C shall do for X….
What I want to do is look up C. I want to show you what manner of man he is. I call him the Forgotten Man. Perhaps the appellation is not strictly correct. He is the man who is never thought of….
He works, he votes, generally he prays—–but he always pays….”

William Graham Sumner
Yale University, 1883

I try to read and get some kind of understanding of history, the history that was never taught. I feel if one doesn’t understand history, how can someone make an informed decision, if they do not know how they got where they currently are? I know this is cliché and quickly going out of style, at least in the US, but I still feel it is the correct way to go.

OK, maybe to other countries where socialism is well known and regularly seen, the US has nothing along those lines. However, to myself, I see “American style socialism” on the rise. We already have a welfare state, massive amounts of government health care, insurance, bailouts, etc etc.

Hell, Obama has even used a key phrase, “The redistribution of wealth”. Now, one can argue taxes should not be included and I am not including them with that comment. He is specifically talking about taking money from “the rich” and dolling it out to the “poor”. Now maybe, just maybe, we Americans are using the term “socialist” in an incorrect manner, and if thats the case then I guess Ill have to find another word to use. But to me, any government taking control of private assets and distributing those assets to others is socialistic. Depending on how far that it takes these measures will determining other things (fascist, authoritarian, etc etc) but the fact of the matter is, for this country at least, the term socialism is used when referring to a government creeping in upon more and more private issues, whether it be health care or someones bank account.

But thanks for letting me know that I had better never think of running for an election in other parts of the world, they’d probably have pictures of me in jackboots walking all over the voting population :p

And if this would help makes some sense of me and of a lot of others, to us, 1776 really doesnt see that long ago, the spirit or the Revolution is alive and well.

On further note, maybe what you are trying to tell me is that the US is the last holdout for a “minimal government”, at least in the American ideal, in the western world?

While I agree with the freedom of speech issue, come on, gimme a break. Maybe its just me, but there are a helluva Lotta whiners in this country and it annoys me.

Who can I complain about that too? 😀

Mrs Palin is the incumbent Governor of Alaska and is running for vice-President of the USA.

Of course she’s a politician!

If we only use the “definition” of a politician I agree with you, what I was referring to is the fact that she is an up and coming “politician” who had very limited backing from her own party. Honestly, besides idiotic answers to reporters questions, I think the main problem that the “elites” in this country have with her is that she is not one of them. But yes, I will admit, she is a politician 😀

Oh, and btw, the night before the election, November 3rd, she was exonerated of all ethics charges against her.

A thousand deaths due to guns…..or cars?

I’m not an American, I don’t live in America and I rarely visit, so American gun laws don’t concern me (apart from the human tragedy of course). Would tighter gun control reduce the number of gun-deaths? Yes, certainly but they wouldn’t’t be eliminated altogether; over half US gun-deaths are suicides (not a widely known or publicized fact).

The simple fact is Americans have guns because they want guns.

Did either Obama or McCain have a policy of much tighter gun-laws? I don’t know but I doubt it.

1000 deaths approximately due to “gun crime”. McCain in all honesty got a C+ grade from the NRA, which is the strongest lobbying group when it comes to gun rights. Obama earned a big fat F.

Wow.

I live in Canada and work for a large American financial services firm. I visit America regularly on business and go on road trips every year to see my favorite Soccer team (Toronto FC) play in various US cities. I served in the Canadian Military overseas and served alongside my American friends in the Balkans.

I always thought that I understood America pretty well, as much as an outsider could anyways, but this election cycle and for that matter this thread has really shattered that assumption.

A large swath of America is so opposite from the rest of the country, let alone the rest of the world, as to be unrecognizable to me. The America I thought I knew is welcoming, charitable, honest, hard working and tolerant of others. The America I thought I knew was an example to the world of a democracy that we all could aspire to.

What I see now is a divided country that has been poisoned by the politics of fear and greed. The Republicans are absolute geniuses to have been able convince such large swaths of the American working class to vote against their better interests in the name of the “culture wars” time after time. And all that hard working Americans have gotten in return is a country in decline in so many ways.

I hope and pray that Americans of any ideological stripe realize that this is the time for the entire country to come together to repudiate the politics of fear and to try and look at ways to bridge the divide between red and blue.

Conservatives in this thread seem to me to be voting against rather than voting for something. I would submit that when you are voting against someone you are voting for the wrong reason. McCain is a good man who might make a good President. I think Obama will be a good president as well. I would challenge conservatives here to tell me why they are “for” McCain rather than “against’ Obama.

I would like to first say I personally feel what you may see on your trips and on the TV may not exactly be the truth, at least the “real” truth. There are many problems in this country, I will be the first one ever to point that out to anyone. I myself, as a conservative, voted for McCain only because the candidate that would better suit my ideals had a snowballs chance in hell to win. Basically, I see McCain as “Obamalite” to varying degrees depending on the subject. If anything, instead of rushing into this great “unknown”, I look at my vote as simply slowing it down, hoping in the future I can help better educate people on the merits of my ideology.

Also, McCain will hopefully be hedge against a possibly Democrat majority in congress, which if they gain as many seats as they think they will, would be undeterred from doing anything.

But to touch on the idea of bridging the gap between blue and red, I am a firm believer that each side, not necessarily the individuals, but the politics of both sides aren’t easily reconciled, if at all. A very simple explanation, which in no way accounts for everything, is that we have two competing ideologies, socialism and capitalism, and personally, I don’t know how you make the two work together “fairly”.

I can sum it up nicely actually, for a lot of us here in the US.

We believe in the individual, not the community, nor the state. It’s that dam simple. It is up to the individual to make the community and state a “good thing”, not the other way around.

I agree…

Five people were killed by bears in the US in 2005…..but 30,694 people were killed by guns.

Back on topic I’m predicting John McCain will win the US presidential election.

And 40,000 plus were killed by in automobile accidents. We better control the cars better too :rolleyes:

In the past 5 years alone there have been around a thousand deaths in Philadelphia, PA alone. I only live 40 miles outside of Philadelphia and to be honest, it does not impede or bother me at all. Do I find it sickening? Of course I do, but as long as these major cities are allowed to be ran by the inmates, the asylum will never help anyone.

Why should I suffer, why should I loose rights because certain groups of people have no semblance of law and order or responsibility?

I think people tend to forget, the US is made of of a hodgepodge or groups living under a common law and, well most of us, ideal.