Not at all.

Take China's present-day government, as an example. They're quite forthright about limiting speech in all sorts of contexts (and punishing violators quite harshly), however I would not confuse this with the more Orwellian concept of actively re-writing the past, or claiming that war is peace.

For instance, the Chinese communist party prohibits citizens from speaking publicly in favor of Tibetan independence. But they do not deny any of the factual history of Tibet.

I can see how this might appear to be a trivial distinction however I consider it to be an important one.




A few reasons come to mind.

1: Being the better person.

2: Leading by example.

3: Demonstrating your moral and intellectual superiority to those racists by not stooping to their level.

 

Lumping all whites into the "they" category is in itself racist. Thinking that he's a better person morally and intellectually is nearly a moot point given his tweet.

 

It's poorly worded, but I don't think he's lumping "all whites" so much as "white people who won't distinguish between Muslims and extremists". His whole point is that it feels bad to be lumped in with a group of people that don't share your views.

 

Au contraire. I think he's lumping all whites into the group of whites that don't distinguish between Muslims and extremists. Twitter's actions during the riots, in response to Trump and so much more don't leave me feeling like they deserve the benefit of the doubt. In other words, they're blind to their own slanted perspective and enforce their rules as such.

 

It annoys me that politicians at the far-left keep preaching the narrative of "the wealthy need to pay their fair share," and voters on the far-left keep buying it.





When, in reality...

 

Anytime a politician says that, the media should respond with, "Define: Fair Share."

however, since they are lap dogs, the next headline they will write is "THE RICH MUST PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE. LEARN HOW YOU CAN FIGHT THE BOURGEOISIE"

 

While from an absolute perspective the wealthy do pay ridiculous tax bills, they aren't the same dollars. A graphic like that would IMO be more accurate with a scaling factor, say an order of magnitude per category.

 

60% of all our dollars were printed in the last year. why do we even pay taxes?

 

And if you break down the lower 50%, the lowest pay negative taxes.... Which I am not opposed to as the Income Tax Credit is way better than welfare and has the natural occurrences:
1) To get an income credit you must have income... Inherently requires a job
2) Slowly sliding scale that as one moves up the economic ladder, the credits become smaller
3) Eventually, those once with negative taxes start paying positive taxes

This is exactly what happened with my daughter as she moved from being a substitute teacher, gained her master's degree and became a full-time teacher.

DNM

 

this is more in-line with where I am at. The ROI on my tax dollar is abysmal. The question for me is how does everybody pay less.

 

This graph is so misleading....but only because the bottom 40% is left out. The bottom 40% is a net yearly recipient of Federal tax dollars.

 

39 year old CEO of an energy company--I'm assuming a liberal as well--responds to Elizabeth Warren's bullshit regarding gas prices. Very much worth the read.

Talking Back to Senator Warren

 

That graph doesn't show "the elephant in the room"...
That top 10% EMPLOY a large percentage of the rest of us.

California ran off Musk...
That was an enormous mistake.
It's damn hard to put a final number on the total loss to California.
Loss of a but-load of jobs and the loss of revenue to the surrounding communities for ALL of the businesses that catered to both the company itself and the employees that are now gone.
Just the property taxes are significant and the above chart doesn't show the whole picture.

Texas WELCOMES Musk and all of his cronies (which Erat says are "the coolest guys in the world".)
Texas wants cool innovators and the resultant increase in total revenue flow in the communities they inhabit.
We've got lots of room to play with toys that go BOOM.
If I was younger I'd try to get a job with Musk, I think it would be life changing...

 

Shocked. SHOCKED, I tell you! World's worst polluter China walks back climate goals.


Dropping a link with zero discussion or insight = The Pony of Shame.

 

Musk just retweeted this one:

 

This annoys the **** out of me. Somehow journalists, millennials, and apparently most people, don't understand that bourgeoisie means MIDDLE CLASS, not the 1%. It's literally the definition of the word.

 

As far as the rich paying their fair share, they do pay a huge part of the taxes that go to the Feds. What people are really complaining about, is that they are able circumvent the rules the rest of us have to play by, by taking their compensation in stock vs typical income. Which is subject to a far lower tax rate than normal income.

You all know this.

 

And when they sell that stock, what is the basis? If zero, then the entire price that it is sold at is taxed as capital gain.

 

Actually, I think they're using it correctly, in this specific context.

In the Marxist philosophy, the middle-class were, in fact, considered to be the enemy of the proletariat.


Look at the folks who are the target demographic of the present day far-left movement in the US. They're not the middle class folks with a cushy office job and a mortgage on a home in the 'burbs. Nor are they the folks who own the local heating & plumbing shop, or the Cinnabon franchise at the mall, or who sell farming & construction equipment.

No, they're the "Fight for 15" crowd. The folks who, due to a lack of education (or, of useful education), a lack of skills, a lack of motivation, or whatever, have made a career out of floating from one dead-end job to the next. And, increasingly, the ones who don't understand why their degree in Art History or LGBT Studies isn't helping them find a job which doesn't involve a cash register.

There was a time when those in skilled-trade (and largely unionized) fields were the bread and butter of US Democrat politics. And while the democrats still pay lip-service to this group, they are no longer the core focus of extreme liberals such as Senator Warren, or Senator Sanders, or Representative Ocasio-Cortez. Those folks all got to where they are by pandering to the basest instincts of the most politically and economically illiterate members of society. The ones willing not just to believe their lies, but to loudly repeat them, and denounce as ***** anyone who attempts to question the "you deserve everything for free, and the fact that you earn less money than people with useful job skills and experience is evidence of systemic racism and bigotry" narrative.


"Blame someone else" has long been a core tenet of both Republican and Democrat politics in the US. But while the Republicans are still mostly blaming the same tired old boogeymen as they have for decades, the Democrats have, quite astutely in my opinion, found a much richer target towards which to direct the anger of those whose loyalty they seek to purchase.



That's definitely a fun thing to hypothesize about, but the actual facts disprove it.

Again go back and look at the data.

If the top 1% of taxpayers collect 21% of all income, and paid 40% of all taxes, then they are, by definition, paying more in tax, both in absolute dollars and also as a percentage of their income, as compared to a group of average schmoes like me, who collect 11% of all income and pay 11% of all taxes.

I mean, it's intuitively obvious if you think about it. It has to be this way, due to the huge percentage of "taxpayers" at the lower end of the income scale who, on account of all of the various credits and deductions and such, pay no tax at all.

 

The government circumvent the rules better than any rich boogieman. They play a mean Ponzi scheme, devalue the dollar at will, decide which corporations and even business sectors live and die. And at the end of the day it's all based on who can grease their palms the best. I don't begrudge anyone who tries to protect as much of their assets from the government as is legally possible.