Let's say there are 5 people that live in a neighborhood. 4 of them are poor or middle class and 1 is rich.
Scenario 1: One of the poor people gets sick and can't afford the treatments. The 4 non-rich neighbors decide the rich person can afford to pay, but they are afraid he will say "no" if they ask. So all 4 (the majority) get their guns, go to the rich neighbor's house and forcibly redistribute his wealth to the sick person. This is a crime. Sure the people have good intentions (helping the sick person), but it does not change the fact that they used force to steal money that was not theirs. The rich man's rights were violated and the 4, even though they are a majority, are guilty and would be punished.
Scenario 2: One of the poor people gets sick and can't afford the treatments. The 4 non-rich neighbors decide the rich person can afford to pay, but they are afraid he will say "no" if they ask. So they hire Tony Soprano to go to the rich neighbor's house and forcibly redistribute his wealth to the sick person. This is a crime. They didn't commit the theft themselves, but they hired somebody to do it for them, and thus they are still guilty.
Scenario 3: One of the poor people gets sick and can't afford the treatments. The 4 non-rich neighbors decide the rich person can afford to pay, but they are afraid he will say "no" if they ask. So they hire Obama to send the IRS to the rich neighbor's house and forcibly redistribute his wealth to the sick person. For some reason, this is not considered a crime by many people. Can you explain this inconsistency to me? Nothing changed from scenario 1 and 2. In all 3 scenarios, the exact same thing happened: based on good intentions, the majority used force to steal money from the minority.
2010-06-04T09:13:24Z
<sigh> Sadly, many people are not capable of identifying the difference between EARNED wealth redistribution (i.e. firefighters that provide a service and EARN a wage) and unearned wealth redistribution (taking money from a person that EARNED it and giving it to a person that did not EARN it). Clearly, my question deals only with UNearned wealth redistribution. Please, pay attention.
All 3 are equally a crime. It is funny in none of your Scenarios did the neighbors even 1st ask the wealthy individual for compassion. Conservatives tend to give more to charity than the liberals as a percentage of their income. Seems like they in doing that are more morally correct than the Left. Jesus never said the Romans (Government at the time) to take care of the down trodden.
To Whatstha.. How many firehouses are in the town? Since the rich pay most of the taxes they are sharing thier fire equipment that they'd have to have anyway. Health care is different. There are many doctors in a town. Their taxes they pay is more than it would cost for them to have a doctor on call 24/7/365. The Left haven't learned nuances. An Utopia doesn't exist.
So when an insurance company denies a legitimate insurance claim because they aren't going to make enough money this quarter for Wall Street and make the CEO's bonus fat, that is legal too. I guess everyone is violated in life.
There is a concept of the Commons you miss out on. Laws are made by people to establish and maintain a healthy and functional society. Using the threat or act of violence to take what you want only works for Americans in other countries. I know you are simply looking for a knee-jerk answer, but there is a reason why America came into greatness and had massive GDP growth after WWII. If you refuse to acknowledge that, then you miss out on why selfish greed is what will drop America from being the only superpower.
That sick person goes bankrupt. They lose their house. Their family either 1) goes destitute and relies on other public services to survive or 2) damage a generation of children with malnutrition all because mommy got sick. Regardless, the foreclosure lowers everyone's property value. And that is a real world example, not a hypothetical.
EDIT: Now, if you can explain to me how simply putting money into a company and then living off the profits derived from the labor of the workers is "earning it," I would be captivated.
The scenario you created is fictional, except for the third one. What really happens in the real world is those that don't have any insurance to to the emergency room for urgent care that could have been avoided if there was regular maintenance. These poor people are treated and the expense is passed on to all tax payers. Hospitals can not deny urgent care.
In reality the health care reform only dictates that insurance companies can no longer deny coverage for those people that are making payments and there are no limits on how much they can charge. There is no provision to force the rich to pay for those that can't afford to pay.
In your narrow definition of 'earned and unearned' wealth distribution, were do the elderly fit in?
Why don't you see what a crime it is to your fellow human beings when they are denied health care? Do you truly feel that it is ok for someone to be denied health care because they can't afford it? Obviously, you don't live in the real world because if in fact you did, you would realize how difficult it is to purchase and pay for health insurance even when you ARE working your butt off.
First of all, we are taxed to some degree. The rich do not suffer terribly by being taxed. Yes, they earned their money but so do a lot of middle class and poor people. Those that do not earn it, well, did you ever wonder how they got where they were in the first place? Ok, some of them are lazy welfare cases, but a lot of them aren't working because they can't or they've had their spirit broken beyond belief, working for peanuts and not getting anywhere, seeing that most of America and their government does not care for them.
Are you so afraid of losing what you have and giving to those that need it? God, I'm so glad that you weren't the deciding factor in whether or not my father would have received health care because he was unemployed and didn't have insurance. He would have died.
Don't you realize that by giving to those that need it, you are effectively HELPING society? Sick people can't work, sick people are miserable! Do you deserve to determine who gets the health care they need and who doesn't? Like I said, EVERYONE is taxed, money is being taken from everyone. The rich do not suffer if they are taxed a bit more than than average, they are still well off and able to afford luxuries and health care and all their necessities!
You think that you are being honorable in saying that those that work hard are having their money taken from them only to be given to those that don't work. But where do your ethics lie? In greed? That is an animal mentality, survival of the fittest. The rich are far from being robbed!
Where you should really be focusing your attention is on the OTHER silly institutions your tax money flows into.